▪ I. swiper
(ˈswaɪpə(r))
[f. prec. vb. + -er1.]
1. A copious drinker. slang or colloq.
| 1836 F. Mahony Rel. Father Prout (1859) 179 ‘Consule scholas Jesuitarum’, exclaims the Lord Chancellor Bacon, who was neither a quack nor a swiper, but ‘spoke the words of sobriety and truth’. 1878 Cumberld. Gloss., Swiper, a hard drinker. |
2. One who deals a swipe or driving stroke; also, a swipe.
| 1853 F. Gale Public School Matches 59 Swiper has the ball; now, if there is one ball which Swiper hits harder than any other, it is an on[-side] long hop rather wide to the leg. 1857 Hughes Tom Brown ii. viii, Jack Raggles the long-stop, toughest and burliest of boys, commonly called ‘Swiper Jack’. 1860 W. P. Lennox Pict. Sporting Life I. 281 A ‘swiper’ (we adopt the phraseology of an old Westminster) might..smash the pane of a travelling-carriage. |
▪ II. swiper
obs. form of swipper a.