sponger
(ˈspʌndʒə(r))
Also 7–9 spunger.
[f. sponge v. or n.1 + -er1.]
1. One who lives meanly at another's expense; a parasite, a sponge.
| 1677 Miége Fr. Dict. i, Ecornifleur,..a Spunger, a smell feast. 1681 T. Flatman Heraclitus Ridens No. 74 (1713) II. 203 A Detachment of sorry Spungers from the Suburb Shovel-board Tables and Nine-pin Alleys. 1710 Swift Lett. (1767) III. 19, I dined with some friends that board hereabout, as a spunger. 1731 Medley Kolben's Cape G. Hope I. 109 My company..only listen'd as Spongers, in order to be treated with the other bottle. 1866 Cornh. Mag. Sept. 287 Shameless and impudent spungers. 1888 Pall Mall G. 3 Sept. 3/2 The spongers for free hospitality at scientific and other annual congresses. |
b. Const. on.
| a 1732 Gay Fables ii. viii, Crush'd in his luxury and pride, The spunger on the public dy'd. 1860 Thackeray Lovel i, An old sponger on other people's kindness. 1890 N. Lindsey Star 9 Aug. 5/3 Those spongers on the nation's earnings are quite happy without work. |
2. One who uses a sponge, esp. in order to cleanse the bore of a cannon.
| 1828–32 Webster, Spunger, one who uses a sponge. 1859 Griffiths Artill. Man. (1862) 228, 4. The sponger. 3. The loader. 1886 Cent. Mag. Apr. 909/1, I was serving on one of the thirty-two pounders, and my sponger was an old man-o'-war's man. |
b. One who transfers designs to pottery by means of a piece of sponge.
| 1881 Instr. Census Clerks (1885) 88 Earthenware, China, Porcelain, Manufacture:..Sponger,..Stamper. |
3. A gatherer of, a diver or fisher for, sponges.
| 1880 N. H. Bishop Sneak-Box 289 An almost uninhabited region, where only an occasional fisherman or sponger is met. 1887 Goode Fisheries U.S. 826 To allow the slimy matter, called ‘gurry’ by the spongers, to run off easily. |
b. A vessel engaged in sponge-fishing.
| 1885 Harper's Mag. Jan. 217/1 We cast longing glances at certain Nassau spongers, trim, shapely cock-boats. |