▪ I. pumper1
(ˈpʌmpə(r))
[f. pump v. + -er1.]
1. a. One who or that which pumps or works a pump; spec. † (a) the official in charge of the pump-room (at a spa) (obs.); (b) one in charge of the pumping-machinery in a mine, etc.; a pumpman; (c) one engaged in a business in which pumping is the characteristic operation, e.g. brine-pumper.
| 1660 Boyle New Exp. Phys. Mech. x, The flame lasted about two minutes from the time the pumper began to draw out the air. 1723 Lond. Gaz. No. 6127/3 The Mayor..of the City of Bath having appointed Carew Davis..Pumper of all the Bath-waters. 1742–9 J. Wood Descr. Bath (1765) I. ii. xii. 224 The Pump House was immediately put under the Care of an Officer that bore the name of the Pumper. 1771 Smollett Humph. Cl. 26 Apr., The pumper [at Bath], with his wife and servant, attend within a bar; and the glasses, of different sizes, stand ranged in order before them. 1834 Blackw. Mag. XXXV. 647 To have gone and assisted at the ceremony of immersion,—whether as pumper or pumpee, I should not have cared. 1904 Daily Chron. 18 Aug. 6/7 The accounts..show that during the past year a rate of 2d. upon all brine pumpers realised {pstlg}3,921. |
b. An exertion, race, or the like which pumps or puts one out of breath. colloq.
| 1874 Coursing Calendar Spring 260 All the latter part of a pumper was in favour of Mr Mill's dog. 1879 H. Dalziel British Dogs i. i. 23 Without this [sc. a good back] the dog [sc. a greyhound] could not endure the exhaustive process of the ‘pumpers’ he is submitted to. |
2. U.S. An oil-well from which the oil is pumped up, as distinguished from a natural spring.
| 1890 in Cent. Dict. |
3. U.S. A fire engine that carries the hose and pumps the water.
| 1915 Fire & Water Engineering 14 July 31/3 (heading) New Seagrave pumpers tested at Denver. 1919 Ibid. 16 July 140/3 Time was, when the motor pumper was still a novelty and many of the departments were still using the horse-drawn steamer to extinguish fires. 1934 W. C. Pryor Fire Engine Book 32 He showed them a big pumper engine... ‘Water power alone is not strong enough to throw the water high into the air..so the pumper puts more pressure behind the water.’ 1949 J. J. Floherty Fire Alarm i. 9 Fire apparatus developed from the man-drawn hand pump to the powerful motorized pumper. 1975 New Yorker 10 Mar. 28/3 Pache showed us Aviation's current fire engine (‘It's a 1951 Ward LaFrance pumper, and it carries five hundred and fifty gallons’). |
▪ II. † pumper2 Obs. nonce-wd.
[f. pump n.2 + -er1.]
(See quot.)
| 1623 Middleton More Dissemblers v. i, I was but a pumper, that is, a puller-on of gentlemen's pumps. |