Word for referring to the arts of the carpenter

Well, since sartorial comes from the Latin word sartor, then I guess the word pertaining to carpenters would be lignarial, coming from the Latin word for carpenter, lignarius.

This is not an attested word of course, but if your goal is obfuscation of the same sort as sartorial, then lignarial is the word you want to use.


Unless the reader has a Latin dictionary on hand (or they search the web and hit this page) 'lignarial' would be inscrutable to most readers (unless that is your goal!)

But if we are using other languages to justify crafting words, 'carpenteria' means carpentry in Spanish, and the -al ending is a common way to turn nouns into adjectives, so may I suggest:

  • carpenterial

In addition, the -or agent noun suffix is common in describing people in a given line of work: actor, governor, navigator, etc. Compare 'gubernatorial':

  • carpentorial

I suppose the only added benefit these made up words would have when your readers see them is that they can probably guess what they mean. Again it depends on context. I would advise against using any of these unattested words in formal writing, for example (even 'lignarial' — and 'lignarial' carries a certain feeling of veracity which may cause folks to look the word up, leading to more frustration when they inevitably cannot find anything about it except this web page).