▪ I. waller1
(ˈwɔːlə(r))
[f. wall v.2 + -er1.]
One who builds walls (see quot. 1908).
| c 1440 Promp. Parv. 514/1 Wallare, murator, machio. Wallare, þat werkythe wythe stone and morter, cementarius. 1513 Douglas æneis i. i. 12 Fra quhame..Come..the valleris of greit Rome. c 1565 in 14th Rep. Hist. MSS. Comm. App. III. 30 Four masones and viij wallaris: viij quariouris. 1612 N. Riding Rec. (1884) I. 253 Oswald Collyson waller or rough mason. 1683 Churchw. Acc. Pittington, etc. (Surtees) 341 To the wallers for work and plastering, 1 l. 2 s. 1890 Lincoln Gaz. 30 Aug. 4/1 Choppers, Wallers, and Masons for Ancaster Stone Wanted. 1908 Remin. Stonemason 89 He himself was what is called a ‘waller’—that is, he did not dress stones, but set them on the walls when dressed, or else built walls of rough, unhewn stone. |
▪ II. waller2
(ˈwɔːlə(r))
[f. wall v.1 + -er1.]
In the Cheshire salt-works, a brine-boiler, a worker who attends to the salt-pans. Also lead-waller (cf. lead-walling, lead n.1 12).
| 1600 Camden Brit. (ed. 5) 543 Et muliercule (Wallers vocant) rastellis ligneis é fundo salem educunt. 1886 Cheshire Gloss., Lead-wallers, commonly abbreviated to Wallers. Waller, a salt-maker or boiler. At present the men call boilers those who make stoved and butter-salt, and the others wallers. 1892 Labour Commission Gloss., Waller, a local term, applied to salt boilers, i.e., those who look after the boiling of the salt. It is applied to the men who look after the making of any white salt, whether the pan is required to boil or not. |
▪ III. waller3
(ˈwɔːlə(r))
[f. wall n.1 + -er1.]
1. A wall-tree.
| 1688 Holme Armoury ii. 87/1 Wall-Trees, called Wallers, are such as are planted at Wall sides, and are pinned up to the Wall. |
† 2. A ‘keeper of the walls’. Hence wallership. Obs.
| 1578 in Househ. Ord. (1790) 264 Keeper of the Walles, alias wallership; fee 2. 5. 4. |
3. (See quots.)
| 1904 Daily Chron. 15 Apr. 8/2 ‘Wallers’..are men who find casual employment as law-writers, and have been facetiously christened ‘wallers’, because they are generally to be found lounging against a wall in Cursitor-street waiting on an engagement. 1908 Ibid. 3 July 6/7 ‘Waller,’ as applied to a man who does law writing... They were called ‘wallers’, as a term of contempt, by the regular writers. |