ˈnester
[f. nest v. + -er1.]
1. A bird that is building, or has built, a nest.
| 1887 Ibis 95 It [sc. Cisticola cursitans] is both an early and late nester. 1895 Daily News 20 Apr. 9/1 The preservers of our Heronry..noted a falling off in the number of nesters. |
2. N. Amer. An opprobrious term for a person who settles permanently in a cattle-grazing region as a farmer, homesteader, etc. (Cf. nest v. 2 c.)
| 1880 Ft. Griffin (Tex.) Echo 3 Jan., [A sheep man is] a tramp, an ingrate, a ‘Nester’, and a liar. 1907 C. E. Mulford Bar-20 xix. 192 Ain't th' Panhandle full of nesters (farmers)? 1918 ― Man from Bar-20 iii. 27 He had found the ruins of a burned homestead..and he guessed that it had been used by ‘nesters’. 1970 Alberta Hist. Rev. Summer 9/2 The one small cloud on this otherwise sunny horizon was the would-be farmer, or as he was more inhospitably known to the cattlemen—the ‘sodbuster’ or ‘nester’. 1973 R. D. Symons Where Wagon Led p. xx, You plant a garden and someone'll see it an' we'll have nesters. |