land-loper, land-louper Now chiefly Sc.
(ˈlændˌləʊpə(r), -ˌlaʊpə(r))
Also 7 -lowper, 8 -looper.
[ad. Du. landlooper (= MHG. lantloufære, G. landläufer), f. land land n.1 + loopen to run: see leap v. Cf. landleaper.]
1. One who runs up and down the land; a vagabond; fig. † a renegade; an adventurer.
| 15.. tr. Bull Pope Martin (c 1417) in Foxe A. & M. (1583) 648/2 Certaine Archheretickes haue risen and sprong vp..being landlopers, schismatikes, and seditious persons. 1580 Hollyband Treas. Fr. Tong, Vn villotier, a lande loper, a runnagate. a 1605 Polwart Flyting w. Montgomerie 757 Land lowper, light skowper, ragged rowper like a raven. 1622 Bacon Hen. VII 114 Hee [Perkin Warbeck] had beene from his Child-hood such a Wanderer, or (as the King called him) such a Land-loper. 1642 Howell For. Trav. (Arb.) 57 Such Travellers as these may bee termed Land-lopers, as the Dutchman saith, rather than Travellers. 1681 W. Robertson Phraseol. Gen. (1693) 799 A Land⁓loper, prædo. 1701 C. Wolley Jrnl. New York (1860) 19 The materials of this Journal have laid by me several years expecting that some Landlooper or other in those parts would have done it more methodically. 1816 Scott Antiq. xiii, This High-German land-louper, Dousterswivel. 1855 Motley Dutch Rep. iv. iii. (1866) 596 Bands of land⁓loupers had been employed..to set fire to villages and towns in every direction. |
| Comb. 1787 Burns Let. to W. Nicol 1 June, My land⁓lowper-like stravaguin. |
† 2. = land-lubber.
Obs.| 1694 Motteux Rabelais v. xviii, We lay by and run adrift, that is in a Landlopers phrase, we temporis'd it. a 1700 B. E. Dict. Cant. Crew, Land-lopers or Land-lubbers, Fresh-water Seamen so called by the true Tarrs. 1725 in New Cant. Dict. |