driver
(ˈdraɪvə(r))
[f. drive v. + -er1.]
1. a. gen. One who drives (in various senses: see the verb).
| 14.. Nom. in Wr.-Wülcker 687/13 Hic fugator, a dryfer. c 1450 tr. De Imitatione iii. lx. 142 Grace is..þrower doun, dryuer awey of sorowe. 1570 Act 13 Eliz. c. 8 §4 Solicitors and Drivers of Bargains. 1625 Bp. R. Montagu App. Caesar i. ix. 80 A dangerous driver at Popery and Sedition. 1767 Richardson in Phil. Trans. LVIII. 20 The weight of a hammer did not contribute so much in driving a nail, as the quickness of the motion given it by the driver. |
b. A horse trained to be driven in harness. U.S.
| 1876 Rep. Vermont Board Agric. III. 168 Stylish, enduring roadsters, trotters and gentlemen's drivers, standing from fifteen to fifteen and one-half hands high. 1902 A. D. McFaul Ike Glidden viii. 61 This is a pretty good driver you've got here. Ibid. 66 All prosperous people there keep a ‘driver’ and a ‘trader’. |
2. spec. a. One who drives a herd of cattle, etc.
| 1483 Cath. Angl. 109/1 A Drywer (A. Dryfer) of nawte. 1530 Palsgr. 215/2 Drivar of camelles, chamelier. 1844 Ld. Brougham A. Lunel II. vi. 156 All were forced to keep the same pace, in order that a single driver..might suffice. |
b. One who drives a vehicle or the animal that draws it; a charioteer, coachman, cabman, etc.; also, one who drives a locomotive engine. (Often with defining word prefixed, as cab-driver, engine-driver, etc., for which see the first element.) Also in Trotting. Phr. in the driver's seat, in a controlling position; in charge.
| c 1450 St. Cuthbert (Surtees) 6016 All þe dryuers ware agaste þat þe sledd suld ga our faste. 1581 Savile Tacitus 93 (R.) Buffons, stage-players, and charet drivers. 1725 Pope Odyss. xiii. 99 Fiery coursers in the rapid race Urg'd by fierce drivers thro' the dusty space. 1812 P. Hawker Diary (1893) I. 55 An excellent chaise with a decent driver. 1923 Nation 18 July 49 He has swung blithely into the driver's seat and cheerfully undertaken to run the nation without knowing how. 1948 N.Y. Times 18 Apr. v. 2/1 Leo Durocher, after an involuntary year of exile, is back in the driver's seat. 1963 Weekly News (Auckland) 8 May 53/1 Two drivers were sprawled on the track after one of the worst smashes at a trotting meeting in the North Island this season. 1965 G. McInnes Road to Gundagai xi. 189 ‘A divine Australian voice’..with a hint of iron in it that made you feel he was in the driver's seat. 1968 Globe & Mail (Toronto) 15 Jan. 20/3 Wes Coke, the young driver from Petrolia, rang up three winners on the matinee card. |
c. The overseer of a gang of slaves. (See also slave-driver.)
| 1796 Stedman Surinam II. xviii. 55 The prisoners..being secured by the negro-drivers. 1823 Ld. Bathurst in Ann. Reg. 131/1 note, That the whip should no longer be carried into the field, and there displayed by the driver. a 1843 Southey Sonn. iii, That inhuman driver lifts..The..scourge. |
d. slang. (See quot.)
| 1851 Mayhew Lond. Labour (1861) II. 233 ‘Drivers’, or those who compel the men in their employ to do more work for the same wages. |
e. In various other specific uses: see quots., and various senses of drive v.
| 1540 Act 32 Hen. VIII, c. 13 §7 The same..driuours [of a forest] shal cause the same vnprofitable beastes..to be killed. 1812 Sporting Mag. XL. 52 The best curler, has generally the power of arranging the order of the game; and whoever is last in order gives directions to all the rest..He is called the driver and the first the lead. 1829 Glover Hist. Derby I. 58 When the holers have finished their operations, a new set of men, called hammer-men, or drivers, enter the works. 1867 Cornh. Mag. Apr. 492–3 There is the ‘long driver’ [at golf], who hits as far in two strokes as a ‘short driver’ does in three. 1884 Harper's Mag. Oct. 753/2 The..workmen wade about the vats spearing..hides as a Western river ‘driver’ does his logs. |
f. Short for driver-ant.
| 1897 M. Kingsley W. Africa 626 Bad language, such as I am accustomed to when a lord of creation gets drivers on him. 1966 C. Sweeney Scurrying Bush vi. 84 Small, reddish-brown drivers clung to my toes. |
g. Cricket. A batsman who drives or is skilled in driving (see drive v. 8 b).
| 1906 A. E. Knight Complete Cricketer 344 The batsman who is proficient at the stroke is..a good ‘driver’. 1921 P. F. Warner My Cricketing Life iii. 64 Lionel Palairet..was also a fine driver on both sides of the wicket. |
3. A tool or appliance for driving. a. A bundle of osier rods used to beat the bushes in ‘driving’ young pheasants (see drive v. 3 b). b. A mallet. c. A tool used by coopers in driving on the hoops of casks. d. Shipbuilding (see quot. 1850). e. Weaving. The piece of wood which drives the shuttle through the shed of the loom. f. A bar for tamping the powder in a blast-hole; a tamping-iron. g. An instrument for enlarging or altering the shape of a drilled hole; = drift n. 13 b. h. A tool for driving out the piece of a metal plate in punching. i. Golf. The play-club: ‘a wooden-headed club with full-length shaft, more or less supple, with which the ball can be driven to the greatest distance’.
| 1674 N. Cox Gentl. Recreat. iii. (1706) 37 Take your Instrument called a Driver, which is made of strong white Wands or Osiers set fast in a handle..With this Driver you must make a gentle noise. 1688 R. Holme Armoury iii. 318/1 A Driver [is] a piece of Wood cut in the form of a Wedge..with this by the help of Blows with the Addice, all sorts of Hoops are driven fast upon Barrels. Ibid. 344/1 A Pavers Maul, or Mall, or Mallet..is of some termed a Driver. 1753 Chambers Cycl. Supp., Driver..used in the taking pheasant powts, in the method called driving..With this instrument the sportsman having fixed his nets, drives the young birds into them. c 1850 Rudim. Navig. (Weale) 116 Driver, the foremost spur on the bilgeways, the heel of which is fayed to the foreside of the foremost poppet, and cleated on the bulgeways, and the sides of it stand fore and aft. It is now seldom used. 1892 Badm. Libr., Mountaineering ii. 68 Forty-four inches is an average length for the golfer's driver..the longest club with which he finds he can hit accurately. 1894 Athenæum 24 Nov. 707/3 The bat [was] a monstrous club..wielded, as one would wield a driver at golf. |
j. That part of an electronic circuit designed to supply the input signal power required by the last stage of a power amplifier, esp. a transmitter or receiver; an electrical device, as a valve or transistor (driver transistor, driver tube, driver valve), immediately preceding the output stage; the stage as a whole immediately preceding the output stage (called also driver circuit, driver stage).
| 1924 S. R. Roget Dict. Electr. Terms 68/2 Driver, an expression sometimes used for a source of oscillations in radio telegraphy, particularly in connection with testing operations. 1938 G. E. Sterling Radio Man. (ed. 3) v. 213 The driver is ordinarily a class A ‘power amplifier’ stage. 1948 Glasoe & Lebacqz Pulse Generators iv. 124 The driver circuit is not an oscillator in the same sense as the circuit used in television, and may more properly be referred to as a ‘regenerative pulse generator’. 1948 I. A. Greenwood et al. Electronic Instruments vii. 179 Since the voltages at the potentiometer arms come from relatively high-impedance sources, precise impedance-changing circuits (drivers) are necessary to reproduce these voltages across the resolver stator windings without loading the potentiometers. 1948 J. A. Pierce et al. Loran vii. 211 The pulse-output circuit and exciter driver amplify and shape the pulse that drives the local transmitter. Ibid. ix. 295 [This] requirement is met by the use of a c-w driver stage that amplifies the output of the 90-kc/sec generator to a level of about 20 watts. 1949 F. G. Garratt tr. Deketh's Fund. Radio-valve Technique xvii. 229 The operation of valves in this manner..involves the flow of grid current and the source of grid-signal voltage has to supply a certain amount of power. To meet this, therefore, the Class-B output stage is preceded by a so-called driver valve capable of supplying a certain power. 1962 Simpson & Richards Junction Transistors xi. 246 The fourth method, direct coupling, may be used advantageously..in the coupling of a driver to a power stage. 1970 J. Earl Tuners & Amplifiers ii. 51 The majority of power amplifiers have their push-pull output transistors driven direct from a pair of driver transistors. |
k. Acoustics. A device in a horn loudspeaker that converts electrical energy into sound.
| 1927 Wireless World 16 Nov. 666/1 It is a case of arranging for the most convenient method of coupling between the driver..in this case between the diaphragm and the air within the horn, so that the imprisoned air shall be acted upon to the best advantage. 1950 H. S. Knowles in K. Henney Radio Engin. Handbk. (ed. 4) xvi. 747 The driver unit is coupled to the horn by the sound chamber. 1967 Badmaieff & Davis How to build Speaker Enclosures ii. 19 Every enclosure alters in some way the performance of the driver placed in it. |
l. Sheep-shearing. (See quots.) Austral. and N.Z.
| 1933 L. G. D. Acland in Press (Christchurch) 14 Oct. 15/7 Driver, a leather strap on the handle of a pair of shears, which fits over the back of the shearer's hand. 1959 H. P. Tritton Time means Tucker iv. 31/1 There is a band of leather from the heel of one blade [of shears] to the back of the other. This is the ‘driver’, and its purpose is to prevent the hand from slipping forward onto the blades. 1965 J. S. Gunn Terminol. Shearing Industry i. 25 Driver, a leather strap on hand shears. This fits firmly round the handle and over the back of the shearer's hand, thus allowing more drive to be given to a blow while preventing the hands from slipping over the blades. |
4. A boat used in fishing with a drift-net.
| 1664 J. Keymer Observ. Dutch Fishing in Phenix (1721) I. 223 The 1500 Strand-boats, Evers, Galiots, Drivers, and Tod-boats fish upon their own Coasts. 1883 Pall Mall G. 9 May 1/2 Drivers (i.e., boats used in the herring, mackerel, or pilchard fisheries with drift nets)..are smaller than trawlers, and are not required to sail while fishing. |
5. Naut. † a. A large sail formerly used at the aftermost part of a ship in fair weather, set ‘square’ (i.e. transverse to the ship's length) on a yard at the end of the spanker-boom. Obs. b. Now applied to the spanker, a fore-and-aft sail at the same part of the ship; sometimes distinguished as a sail smaller than the spanker, but set on the same boom and gaff.
| 1769 Falconer Dict. Marine (1789) Driver, an oblong sail, occasionally hoisted to the mizen peak, when the wind is very fair. 1794 Rigging & Seamanship I. 217 The Driver or Spanker Sail Is bent as a temporary matter. 1798 Jrnl. of ‘Vanguard’ Dec., in Nicolas Disp. Nelson (1845) III. 209 A very stormy passage, in which the Vanguard split her three topsails and the driver though it was brailed up. 1867 Smyth Sailor's Word-bk., Driver, a large sail formerly used with the wind aft or quartering..The name latterly has been officially applied to the spanker, both being the aftermost sails of a ship. 1883 (A Coastguard says) A driver differs from a spanker in being smaller, and is used in bad weather, being set on the same gaff and boom. |
6. a. A part of machinery, usually a wheel, which communicates motion to other parts, or to which the power is directly communicated; the driving-wheel of a locomotive, etc.
| 1831 G. R. Porter Silk Manuf. 208 The rude wooden wheels and drivers which were long used. 1847 Engineer & Mach. Assistant (1850) 71 When two wheels geer together, the one which communicates the motion to the other is called the driver or leader, and the wheel impelled is called the follower. 1879 Holtzapffel Turning IV. 196 Motion is transmitted by the contact of an arm or pin, the driver, on the chuck, with an arm or carrier attached to the work. |
b. front-driver, rear-driver, double-driver: applied respectively to a bicycle or tricycle in which the driving power is applied to the front wheel, the hind wheel, or two wheels (of a tricycle).
| 1885 Bazaar 30 Mar. 1275/1 Imperial Club tricycle..front steerer, double driver. 1891 Wheeling 11 Mar. 455 The rear-driver can be mastered in a much shorter time. 1895 Cycl. Tour. Club Gaz. Dec. 372, I did not see one solitary specimen of the front driver. |
7. Comb., driver-ant, a species of ant (Anomma arcens) found in West Africa: see quot. 1865; driver-boom (Naut.), the boom on which the driver (sense 5) is set; driver-yard (see quot.).
| 1794 Rigging & Seamanship I. 84 The mizen course and driver boom sail [are set] from the mizen mast. Ibid. 180 The Driver-yard is a small yard, which expands the head of the driver without the peek of the gaff, to which it is hoisted by haliards. 1799 Naval Chron. I. 442 Her driver boom [is] gone. 1859 Darwin Orig. Spec. viii. (1878) 232 Nest of the driver ant. 1865 Wood Homes without H. xxiv. (1868) 447 They are called Driver Ants because they drive before them every living creature. |
Hence ˈdriveress (nonce-wd.), a female driver; ˈdriverless a., without a driver; ˈdrivership, the office of a driver (sense 2 b); skill in driving.
| 1691 E. Taylor Behmen's Theos. Philos. 346 Not the Omnipotency, but the Driveress in or into the might. 1860 All Year Round No. 72. 511 They go on performing surpassing feats of drivership. 1870 Daily News 23 Apr., He lost all command over the horses, which dashed along driverless. 1892 Pall Mall G. 19 Jan. 4/3 The runaway horses had taken the driverless coach on without injury. |