ˈswartˌrutter Obs. exc. Hist.
Also 6 swartroter, swart(e) rutter, swartrytter, swarthrutter.
[a. early mod.Du. swartrutter (in Kilian swerte ruyters pl.): see swart a. and rutter1.]
One of a class of irregular troopers, with black dress and armour and blackened faces, who infested the Netherlands in the 16th and 17th centuries.
| 1557 in Cecil Papers (Hist. MSS. Comm.) I. 144 A number of our Swartroters took Scheney. 1558 in Feuillerat Revels Q. Eliz. (1908) 94 The performaunce of A Maske of swart⁓rutters. 1572 Buchanan Detection Mary Q. Scots D iij b, Put on ane lose cloke, sic as the Swartrytters weare. 1598 E. Guilpin Skial. (1878) 36 Like a Swartrutters hose his puffe thoughts swell, With yeastie ambition. 1634 W. Tirwhyt tr. Balzac's Lett. I. 128 The novelty of these barbarous faces, and of those great lubberly Swa[r]t-rutters, might easily have affrighted us. 1657 Reeve God's Plea 81 Fitter for Swartrutters and Ruffians, then for true Penitents. [1706 Phillips (ed. Kersey), Swart-Reyter, (Dutch) a Horseman with black Armour.] 1900 F. W. Maitland in Fisher Biog. (1910) 122 The English government's one idea of carrying on a big war..was that of hiring German ‘swart⁓rutters’. |
Hence † swartrutting a. nonce-wd., behaving like a swartrutter.
| 1592 Greene Upst. Courtier D 4, Making no brawles to haue wounds, as swartrutting veluet breeches dooth. |