soaper
(ˈsəʊpə(r))
Forms: 3, 5 sopare, 4, 7 soper, 5 sopere, 6– soaper.
[f. soap n. Cf. Du. zeeper soap-boiler.]
1. † a. One who sells soap. Obs. b. A soap-boiler, soap-maker. Now Hist.
| c 1225 Ancr. R. 152 A sopare, þet ne bereð buten sope & nelden, remð & ȝeieð lude & heie þet he bereð. 1393 Langl. P. Pl. C. vi. 72 Sopers and here sones for seluer han be knyghtes. 14.. Lat.-Eng. Voc. in Wr.-Wülcker 612 Smigmator, a sopere. c 1440 Promp. Parv. 465/1 Sopare, marchaunt.., saponarius. 1591 Percivall Sp. Dict., Xabonero, a soaper, Saponarius. 1632 in Rymer Fœdera (1732) XIX. 381 Divers Persons in..the Society of Sopers within the Citty of Westminster. 1641 Short Relation conc. Soap-Business 12 The white soape made by the Soapers of Westminster spoyled and burnt the Linnen. 1805 R. W. Dickson Pract. Agric. I. 247 The waste of soapers..may be made use of in the same way. 1825 Jamieson Suppl., Soaper, a soap-boiler; Aberd[een]. 1828 D'Israeli Chas. I, II. i. 21 It was urged that barrels of the new soap had been sophisticated by the malice of the old soapers. |
| attrib. 1839 Ure Dict. Arts 594 [For making] Green window glass, or broad glass... 10 pounds of soaper salts [etc.]. |
c. In collocations, as
soaper's ashes,
soaper's liquor,
soaper's lye,
soaper's waste. (
Cf. soap-boiler 1 b.)
| 1725 Family Dict. s.v. Blood-running Itch, Others wash the Horse once or twice in Soaper's Liquor. 1766 Museum Rusticum VI. 309 To make a trial..betwixt these ashes..and soapers waste. 1793 Trans. Soc. Arts V. 48 Seed steeped in Soaper's ashes. 1817–8 Cobbett Resid. U.S. (1822) 76, I see people go with their wagons five miles for soaper's ashes; that is to say, spent ashes. 1879 Cassell's Techn. Educ. I. 331/2 The remaining liquor..is commonly called soaper's lye. |
d. A manufacturer of soap.
| 1965 Economist 16 Oct. 303/2 Denied any real difference to exploit, the soapers have not even got an expanding market to sell in. 1979 Jrnl. R. Soc. Arts Dec. 60/1 The glassmakers and soapers responded to the growing shortage of domestic potash in several ways. 1982 Shell Technol. No. 3. 6/2 Manufacturing the surfactant molecules known as detergent active matter falls, normally, into the domain of the chemicals industry. Combining this active matter with the other constituents of a modern synthetic detergent and marketing the finished product is the concern of ‘soapers’. |
2. techn. (See
quot.)
| 1909 Cent. Dict. Suppl., Soaper, in calico-printing, a machine in which the cloth is washed with soap. |
3. = soap opera 1 a.
N. Amer. colloq.| 1946 Time 26 Aug. 56/3 The result: Pepper Young's Family, one of radio's most popular soapers. 1972 Daily Colonist (Victoria, B.C.) 4 Feb. 2/1 The CBC soaper Whiteoaks of Jalna rates only slightly higher than a documentary on the mating habits of the tsetse fly. 1981 TV Picture Life Mar. 6/1 Daytime soapers were dealing with sex and violence far more explicitly than their night⁓time brothers for quite a while. |