sow-gelder
Also 9 -gilder.
[f. sow n.1]
One whose business it is to geld or spay sows.
| c 1515 Cocke Lorell's B. 4 Here is gylys Iogeler of ayebery, And hym sougelder of lothe bery. 1530 Palsgr. 273/1 Sowe geldre, chastrevx de trvyes. 1596 Nashe Saffron Walden Wks. (Grosart) III. 169 Vpon euerie stage hee hath beene brought for a Sicophant and a Sow-gelder. c 1614 Fletcher, etc. Wit at Sev. Weapons iv. ii, Why thou sawcy issue of some travelling Sow-gelder, What makes love in thy mouth? 1654 Whitlock Zootomia 131 They never use any of this stuff to their Sow-gelder, or Farrier. a 1722 Lisle Husb. (1757) 407 A sow-gelder that had cut for me, cut four pigs for a neighbouring farmer. 1749 Fielding Tom Jones iv. viii, Old Echepole, the sowgelder. 1820 Shelley Œd. Tyr. i. 70 Call in..Moses the sow-gelder. 1857 Borrow Romany Rye xvii, Two respectable-looking individuals, whether farmers or sow-gelders, I know not. |
b. In references to the horn blown by the gelder to announce his arrival at a place.
| 1604 Middleton Father Hubburd's T. Wks. (Bullen) VIII. 73 Winding his pipe like a horn..which must needs make him look like a sow-gelder. 1621 Burton Anat. Mel. iii. ii. iii. iii. (1651) 472 There needs no more..but a cryer to go before them..or for defect a Sowgelder to blow. 1673 [R. Leigh] Transp. Reh. 135 You are disturb'd with the tooting of a sow-gelders horn. 1711 Addison Spect. No. 251 ¶4 The Sowgelder's Horn has indeed something musical in it, but this is seldom heard within the Liberties. |
Hence sow-geldering vbl. n.
| 1664 Butler Hud. ii. i. 718 Semiramis..Who..laid foundation Of Sow-geldering operation. |