▪ I. homer1
(ˈhəʊmə(r))
[f. home n. and v. + -er1.]
1. [home v. 4.] A homing pigeon.
| 1880 Times 24 Nov. 10 The homer bird is sometimes called the Antwerp. 1888 Pall Mall G. 1 Aug. 2/2 Country doctors often employ homers to return with prescriptions to their surgeries in special cases. 1892 Cassell's Sat. Jrnl. 13 Aug. 1124/1 During Mr. Gladstone's Midlothian campaign..by means of homers, the reporters despatched messages from mining villages to Edinburgh. |
2. [home n.1 B. 4.] In Baseball, a home run. So homer v., to hit a home run.
| 1868 New Eng. Base Ballist 6 Aug. 3/1 The second inning saw a change as the Champions went out for two runs, one of these a ‘homer’. 1951 in Wentworth & Flexner Dict. Amer. Slang (1960) 265/1 Bobby Thomson, who homered..and Monte Irwin, who also homered. 1961 Listener 19 Oct. 594/2 A homer is a mighty hit at baseball: into the stands or out of the ground—the equivalent of a six at cricket. Ibid., Babe Ruth hit his sixty homers in a season of 154 games. 1967 Boston Herald 8 May 16/2 Fregosi homered in the fifth and Knoop in the sixth off reliever Bob Humphreys for the only Angel extra-base hits. 1972 N.Y. Times 4 June v. 1/8 Johnny Bench had homered in the seventh. |
3. [home n.1 6.] (See quot. 1945.) Austral. and N.Z. slang.
| 1945 Baker Austral. Lang. viii. 156 Homer, a wound sufficiently serious to cause a man to be sent home. 1949 E. de Mauny Huntsman in Career 180 ‘Don't say you've got a {oqq}homer{cqq} already, mate.’ He pointed to Peter's bandaged hand. 1950 G. Wilson Brave Company xi. 173, I nearly did get a homer that time. |
4. [home v. 5.] A homing device.
| 1958 Chambers's Techn. Dict. Add. 985/1 Homer, any arrangement which provides signals or fields which can be used to guide a vehicle to a specific location, usually determined by a homer transmitter. 1959 Daily Tel. 1 June 9/3 Thunderbird is what is known as ‘a semi-active homer’. It receives the echoes of the illuminating radar's beam in a set in its own nose and homes on to the target accordingly. 1959 ‘J. Wyndham’ & Parkes Outward Urge i. 29 Fix up one of the dispatch homers on it, and let it jet itself along. |
▪ II. ‖ homer2
(ˈhəʊmə(r))
Also chomer.
[ad. Heb. χōmer, lit. ‘heap’.]
A Hebrew measure of capacity, the same that in later times was called the cor, containing 10 ephahs, or 10 baths (liquid measure). Its content has been very variously calculated, but was probably about 80 gallons.
(Not to be confounded with the omer ﻋōmer, = 1/10th of an ephah.)
| 1535 Coverdale Ezek. xlv. 14 Ten Battes make one Homer. 1611 Bible Isa. v. 10 The seed of an Homer shall yeeld an Ephah. 1778 Lowth Transl. Isa. v. 10 A chomer of seed shall produce an ephah. 1876 Helps Study Bible 241, 10 ephahs = 1 kor, or homer. |
¶ Also erroneously used for omer, q.v.
▪ III. homer
contr. of hoe-mother: see hoe n.4