dauber
(ˈdɔːbə(r))
[f. daub v. + -er1. In sense 1 prob. going back to AFr. daubour, in med.L. daubātor whitewasher, plasterer.]
One who or that which daubs.
† 1. One who plasters or covers walls with mortar, clay, etc.; a plasterer; one who builds with daub. Obs.
| [c 1300 Lib. Cust. Edw. I, I. 99 (Godef.) De plastrers, de daubours, de teulers.] 1382 Wyclif Isa. xli. 25 As a daubere, or a pottere to-tredende the lowe erthe. 1398 Trevisa Barth. De P.R. xvi. ii. (1495) 553 Claye is tough erthe..and ableth to dyuers werkes of dawbers. 1419 Liber Albus (Rolls Ser.) I. 289 Carpenters, masouns, plastrers, daubers, teulers. c 1515 Cocke Lorell's B. (Percy Soc.) 10 Parys plasterers, daubers, and lyme borners. 1535 Coverdale 2 Kings xii. 12 To them that buylded and wroughte in the house of the Lorde, namely, to the dawbers and masons. 1601 Cornwallyes Ess. xi, Straw, and durt good only for Thatchers, and Dawbers. 1641 Milton Animadv. vi. (1851) 240 Yet this Dauber would daub still with his untempered Mortar. 1816 in Peel Spen Valley (1893) 288 [A plasterer who] under the sobriquet of Dick Dawber was known far and near. a 1825 Forby Voc. E. Anglia, Dauber, a builder of walls with clay or mud, mixed with stubble or short straw..In Norfolk it is now difficult to find a good dauber. |
† 2. One who puts a false show on things; a hypocritical flatterer. Obs.
| 1642 Rogers Naaman 425 Put case, thou wert under the Ministery of a dawber and flatterer. 1653 Baxter Meth. Peace Consc. 388 Meddle not with men-pleasers and daubers. 1692 E. Walker Epictetus' Mor. lxxi, If praised, he can despise The fulsome Dawber, and his Flatteries. |
3. A coarse or unskilful painter.
| 1655 Fuller Ch. Hist. i. i. §1 They were not Artists in that Mystery..being rather Dawbers then Drawers. 1697 Dryden Virg. (1806) II. 150 It hath been copied by so many sign-post daubers. 1751 Smollett Per. Pic. (1779) II. xlii. 55 What is the name of the dauber who painted that? 1880 Manch. Guard. 31 Dec., They will see..in David Cox something more than a dauber. |
4. U.S. A species of sand-wasp: from the way in which it daubs mud in forming its nest.
| 1844 Gosse in Zoologist II. 582 The little boys..informed me that these were the nests of dirt-daubers. 1889 in Farmer Americanisms. |
5. Anything used to daub with; e.g. a rag-brush or stump used to put blacking upon boots, where it is spread by the blacking-brush.
6. = dabber 1 b (Ogilvie).