bog-trotter
(ˈbɒg-ˌtrɒtə(r))
[f. bog n. + trotter.]
† 1. One accustomed to make his way across bogs, or to run to bogs for refuge. Obs.
| 1700 Rycaut Hist. Turks III. 276 Being very nimble and active, and a kind of Bog-trotter, Achmet escaped over a Marsh. 1755 Johnson, Bog-trotter, one that lives in a boggy country. |
2. spec. Applied to the wild Irish in the 17th c.; continued in the 18th c. as a nickname for Irishmen.
| 1682 Philanax Misopappas, Tory Plot ii. 18 An idle flam of shabby Irish Bogtrotters. a 1733 North Lives I. 406 His friends were termed Bog trotters, wild Irish, or, which means the same thing, Tories. 1753 Smollett Ct. Fathom (1784) 80/1 A beggarly Scot, and an impudent Irish bog-trotter. 1773 Johnson Lett. 79. I. 132 Moss in Scotland is bog in Ireland, and moss-trooper is bog-trotter. 1855 Macaulay Hist. Eng. IV. 712 Two Irishmen, or, in the phrase of the newspapers of that day, bogtrotters. |