▪ I. thrasher1, thresher
(ˈθræʃə(r), ˈθrɛʃə(r))
Forms: see thrash v.; also 6–7 tres(s)her.
[f. thrash, thresh v. + -er1.]
One who or that which thrashes or threshes.
1. a. One who separates grain from the straw by beating with a flail, or otherwise. (More usually spelt thresher.)
| 1380 in Thorold Rogers Oxford City Doc. (1891) 39 De Waltero le thressher. c 1400 Laud Troy Bk. 9333 Echon on other ffaste doth bete, Ryght as threscheres doth on whete. c 1440 Promp. Parv. 492/2 Threschare, triturator, flagellator. 1486 Bk. St. Albans F vj b, A Thraue of Throsheris. 1535 Coverdale Isa. xxi. 10 O my felowe throsshers and fanners. 1593 Shakes. 3 Hen. VI, ii. i. 131 A lazie Thresher with a Flaile. 1616 Surfl. & Markh. Country Farme 18 Your Barne, with his great dore..to giue light to the Threshers. 1632 Massinger City Madam ii. ii, To sit like a fool at home, and eye your thrashers. 1641 Best Farm. Bks. (Surtees) 143 Others..give to theire thrashers 5d. a quarter for oates. 1707 Mortimer Husb. (1721) I. 36 A good Thrasher can thrash out but about six Gallons in a Day. 1784 Cowper Task i. 356 We may discern the thresher at his task. Thump after thump resounds the constant flail. 1859 Jephson Brittany iii. 23 The threshers..struck the corn alternately. 1864 H. Ainsworth John Law v. ix, I lays about me right and left like a thrasher. |
b. (a) Each of the beaters in a threshing-machine. (b) A threshing-machine.
| 1805 Dickson Pract. Agric. I. 30 If the unthrashed corn goes in sideways or irregularly, the thrashers can have but little power upon it. 1877 Knight Dict. Mech. 2554/1 Meikle..invented a machine in 1786, which is the type of modern thrashers. 1884 Manchester Exam. 30 Sept. 5/7 Teams of horses draw the corn to the thrasher. 1891 T. Hardy Tess xlvii, The hum of the thresher..increased to a raving whenever the supply of corn fell short of the regular quantity. |
2. A sea-fox or fox-shark, Alopias vulpes; so called from the very long upper division of the tail, with which it lashes an enemy. Also called thresher- or thrasher-fish, thrasher-shark.
| α 1609 Newes fr. Bermudas July, in Force Hist. Tracts II. 22 The Threasher keepeth above him, & with a mighty great thing like unto a flaile, hee so bangeth the whale, that hee will roare as though it thundered. 1630 Donne Progr. Soul 351 The Flail-finn'd Thresher, and steel-beak'd Sword-fish. 1758 Borlase Nat. Hist. Cornw. xxiii. §3. 265 The sea-fox, Vulpecula, or Simia marina..; this shark we call the Thresher, from the motion of its long fox-like tail with which it strikes or threshes its larger and less agile enemy the grampus. 1845 Gosse Ocean iii. (1849) 146 Another Shark, often called the Thresher,..is said to use its muscular tail..to inflict terrible slaps on the Whale. |
| β 1638 Davenant Madagascar Wks. (1673) 206 The martiall Musick might incite The Sword-fish, Thrasher, and the Whale to fight. 1712 E. Cooke Voy. S. Sea 173 The Spaniards say the Thrashers and Sword-Fishes often kill the Whales. 1860 J. Couch Brit. Fishes I. 38 Instances are reported where a Sword fish on the one hand and a Thrasher on the other, have persecuted a large Whale. |
3. One who thrashes or beats another.
| 1907 Daily Chron. 21 Mar. 5/5 A Bill..introduced..into the Legislature of Pennsylvania legalising the thrashing of editors..who wrongfully comment on individuals. The Bill makes the proof of publication of a libel a complete defence if the editor sues the thrasher for assault and battery. |
4. attrib. and Comb., as thresher-fish, thrasher-shark = 2; thresher- or thrasher-whale, a grampus or killer, as Orcinus orca.
| 1782 ‘J. H. St. John de Crèvecœur’ Lett. from Amer. Farmer vi. 169 The following are..the various species of whales known to these people... The killer, or thrasher about thirty feet; they often kill the other whales. 1865 De Morgan in Athenæum No. 1981. 504/2 As the thresher-fish behaves towards the whale. 1888 Ayr Advertiser 5 July 6 A very large specimen of the fox or ‘thresher’ shark was recently caught..at Port-na-Luing. 1905 Daily Chron. 5 July 6/6 A thrasher whale, measuring 10ft., and weighing 2 cwt. 1906 Ibid. 11 June 5/5 Three Southwold fisherman have secured in the bay a thresher fish. |
▪ II. thrasher2
(ˈθræʃə(r))
Also thresher, thrusher.
[Perh. a survival of thrusher, thresher, an Eng. dialectal name of the thrush (Turdus musicus), in U.S. assimilated to prec.; but chronological evidence is wanting.
Cf. 1881 Oxfordsh. Gloss., Suppl. (E.D.S.), Thresher or Thrusher, a thrush.]
A bird of the North American genus Harporhynchus, resembling the Song Thrush; esp. H. († Turdus) fuscus, the best known of the species, of the north-eastern U.S., called also brown thrasher, brown thrush.
| 1808–14 A. Wilson Amer. Ornith. (1832) I. 233 The Brown Thrush, or Thrasher, of the middle and eastern states. Ibid. 235 The Thrasher is a welcome visitant in spring. 1845 S. Judd Margaret i. vi, She sings round after dark, like a thrasher. 1883 Newton in Encycl. Brit. XVI. 541/1 Known in the United States as Threshers..very Thrush⁓like in their habits. 1896 ― Dict. Birds 958 Thrasher, Thresher, or Thrusher,..a bird well known in the eastern part of North America, the Turdus fuscus of the older and Harporhynchus fuscus of later ornithologists. |