panhandler
(ˈpænˌhændlə(r))
[f. panhandle n. or panhandle v. + -er1.]
1. A beggar. slang (orig. U.S.).
| 1897 F. Moss Amer. Metropolis II. vii. 393 A party of petty thieves and ‘pan-handlers’ (able-bodied street beggars), went into the ‘Morgue’. 1899 Ade Doc. Horne xxiii. 255 The freckled boy then announced that he had ‘sized’ the hustler for a ‘panhandler’ from the start. 1909 [see lone a. 3 c]. 1929 Daily Tel. 8 Jan. 11/6 Large profits from begging in the rich Fifth Avenue business districts have produced a ‘king of the pan-handlers’. 1954 Manch. Guardian Weekly 30 Dec. 14/3 The delicatessen stores alone in this city [sc. New York] would make the Phoenicians feel like pan-handlers and the merchant princes of Venice like fugitives from a soup kitchen. 1962 H. Hood in R. Weaver Canad. Short Stories (1968) 2nd Ser. 202 In a minute they would speak to him. They always did, drunks and panhandlers. 1966 F. Shaw et al. Lern Yerself Scouse 57 A pan'andler, a scrounger of food. 1973 ‘E. McBain’ Hail to Chief vi. 113 Don't..start screaming if a panhandler taps you on the shoulder. He may only want a quarter for a drink. 1975 Globe & Mail (Toronto) 5 July 2/1 Panhandlers..urinate in doorways, sleep in the streets. 1978 G. Vidal Kalki vi. 136 First they would approach a well-dressed person of the sort who would normally run a mile to avoid a panhandler for god, any god. |
2. (With capital initial.) A native or inhabitant of a Panhandle.
| 1936 Sun (Baltimore) 12 May 12/5 If the gentleman from Texas wants us to revise our lingo so that it meets the approval of the Panhandlers, the least he could do is offer a substitute for the word he wishes eliminated. 1940 E. Fergusson Our Southwest xviii. 335, I talked all this over with a native-born Panhandler. 1949 10 Story Western May 28/2 He remembered how it was down there in the Panhandle—how the Panhandlers hated these Rio Valley floaters as no Idaho man could. |