▪ I. roarer1
(ˈrɔərə(r))
[f. roar v. + -er1.]
1. a. One who or that which roars.
| 1388 Wyclif Ecclus. li. 4 Thou hast delyuered me..fro roreris [L. a rugientibus]. |
| 1598 Florio, Ruggiatore, a roarer. 1610 Shakes. Temp. i. i. 18 What cares these roarers for the name of King? 1689 Cotton Winter xxxviii, Into our fortress, let us haste; Where all the roarers of the north Can neither storm, nor starve us forth. 1715 Flying Post 27 Jan., For roarers of the word ‘Church’, {pstlg}40. For a set of ‘No Roundhead’ roarers, {pstlg}40. 1751 Johnson Rambler No. 144 ¶8 The roarer..has no other qualification for a champion of controversy than a hardened front and strong voice. 1790 Marshall Rur. Econ. Midl. II. 285 She [a cow] was a ‘roarer’ and a breaker of hedges. 1864 C. W. King Gnostics 54 Bromius the Roarer, an appropriate epithet of the Grecian Dionysus. 1874 Contemp. Rev. Oct. 669 To exhibit the powers of every village roarer, and to prevent all congregational singing. 1903 W. S. Blunt Seven Golden Odes 33 Fled to the land of the lions, roarers importunate. |
† b. A noisy, riotous bully or reveller; a wild roisterer. Obs.
| 1586 D. Rowland Lazarillo ii. (1672) R 5, Canil was dressed like a Roarer. 1611 Beaum. & Fl. Philaster v. iv, We are thy Mirmidons, thy Guard, thy Rorers. 1649 W. M. Wandering Jew (1857) 54, I am a man of the Sword; a Battoon Gallant,..in rugged English, a Roarer. a 1704 T. Brown Def. Gaming Wks. 1709 III. 149 Is there any so besotted to the Bottle, which this Discourse of Pliny's..cannot reclaim..from the Suppers of Roarers to the Dinners of the Cinicks? 1709 Steele Tatler No. 40 ¶3 All your Top-Wits were Scowrers, Rakes, Roarers, and Demolishers of Windows. |
c. A street-seller of newspapers, who calls out fictitious news.
| 1865 Pall Mall G. 5 Aug. 6/2 One of a class of men known in the trade as ‘roarers’ went round with a few evening papers which he announced to be ‘extraordinary editions’. |
2. A horse affected with roaring.
| 1811 Sporting Mag. XXXVII. 129 The horse..turned out to be what jockies call a roarer, which is a defect in the wind. 1831 Youatt Horse 160 Many more carriage-horses become roarers, than those that are used for the saddle alone. 1889 Yorks. Post 25 Nov. 3/5 The records state that Eclipse also was a roarer, or ‘high blower’, as the term was in his day [a 1789], the word ‘roarer’ not having yet been applied to horses. |
3. A noisy or rousing song.
| 1837 Marryat Dog Fiend ix, Let's have the roarer by way of a finish. |
4. U.S. slang. Something superlatively good.
| 1827 Massachusetts Spy 10 Jan. 1/4 The Albany beau..drinks brandy and talks politics, swears at the servants, and quarrels with his landlord and is in fact what he styles himself, ‘a real roarer’. 1852 Mrs. Stowe Uncle Tom's C. vii. 47 Thar's Bruno—he's a roarer! 1857 Heavysege Saul (1869) 141 Were it not the roarer of all jests, To up and peep at the outside of heaven? 1872 Schele de Vere Americanisms 224 An active young man or a bouncing lass is apt to be admiringly designated as a roarer. |
5. U.S. An oil-well from which the oil pours rapidly and noisily.
| a 1885 B. J. Crew Pract. Treat. Petroleum (1887) vii. 227 We have no right, perhaps, to expect a continuance of the ‘roarers’, or ‘gushers’ as they are termed. |
▪ II. ˈroarer2 dial.
[f. East Anglian roar to turn over (salted herrings): cf. rore v.]
A wooden basket to carry salt herrings: cf. roaring basket.
| 1895 Rye E. Anglian Gloss. |