overner local.
(ˈəʊvənə(r))
[? f. over adv. + -er1, after northerner, southerner, etc.]
In the Isle of Wight, a visitor or immigrant from the mainland; = overer n.2 Cf. overun a. and n.
| 1886 W. H. Long Dict. Isle of Wight Dial. 46 Overner, or overun feller, a person whose home is over the water, on the main land; not a native of the Island. West countrymen, who come to work in the Island, are always ‘overun fellers’... ‘I wish it had capsized they there overners, comen across.’ 1951 B. Vesey-Fitzgerald in E. Molony Portraits of Islands 65 You may still find in the interior men who speak of people from the mainland as ‘overners’ (foreigners). 1965 L. Wilson Portrait of Isle of Wight i. 15 As well as a strong feeling of security it confers on the inhabitants a sense of identity which ‘overners’, as they call them, people from over the water, do not possess. 1974 Isle of Wight County Press 12 Oct. 19/6 Now there's myself (an Overner, surely) shedding a tear for a scene that had to go. |