patteroller
(ˈpætərəʊlə(r))
Also pateroller, patter(-)roller.
Southern U.S. varr. patroller; spec. a person who watched and restricted the movements of Blacks by night. Obs. except hist.
| c 1862 J. C. Harris Uncle Remus & Friends (1892) 196 He sing en he play—oh, gals, go 'way! Whar de patter⁓roller never kin see. 1893 Nation (N.Y.) 7 Sept. 173/1 Ability to write meant ability to counterfeit passes which would outwit the ignorant midnight ‘patterrollers’. 1899 B. W. Green Word-bk. Virginia Folk-speech 268 Patteroller, a patroller. 1917 Dialect Notes IV. 385 Pateroller. Night-guard over negro slaves on an ante-bellum plantation. Ky. 1928 S. V. Benét John Brown's Body 40 He's friends with de ha'nts and steel won't touch him But the paterollers is sure to cotch him. 1936 M. Mitchell Gone with Wind xvii. 307 What are you boys doing so far from Tara? You've run away, I'll be bound. Don't you know the patterollers will get you sure? 1964 R. Hayden in Negro Digest June 47 Moon so bright and no place to hide, The cry up and the patterollers riding. |