mumper Obs. exc. dial. or slang. (See E.D.D.)
(ˈmʌmpə(r))
[f. mump v.2 + -er1.]
A beggar, mendicant. Also, † one who ‘sponges’ on others.
| 1673 R. Head Canting Acad. 79 Mumpers are both Male and Female, a Gentiler sort of Beggars, for they scorn to beg for food, but money or cloaths. 1690 Secret Hist. Chas. II & Jas. II 69 The Commons..readily voted the Royal Mumper no less than one million two hunder'd and fifty thousand Pounds. 1736 Ainsworth Lat. Dict., A mumper of a dinner, Parasitus, cœnipeta. 1755 Mem. Capt. P. Drake iii. 25, I..from a Mumper at Cottages became a Guest at the best Inns. 1766 H. Walpole Lett. 9 Feb. (1892) IV. 476 It is below such a nation as England to trouble its head whether an old mumper at Rome calls a wretched fugitive Rè d' Inghilterra or Principe di Galles. 1882 Sydney Slang Dict. 6/1 Mumper, beggar. 1967 Economist 30 Sept. 1172/1 This is the total number of ‘travellers’—Romanies; mixed-blood ‘past-rats’ and ‘didcois’; ‘mumpers’, who have no Romany blood; and (mostly Irish) tinkers—recorded by a Ministry of Housing census. 1972 Countryman Autumn 86 Beside the gypsies there are many other pickers—tramps, mumpers, all sorts. |