ten-pounder
(ˌtɛnˈpaʊndə(r))
[Parasynthetically f. ten pound(s + -er1.]
1. a. A thing (e.g. a ball, a fish) weighing ten pounds; spec. a fish, Elops saurus, about three feet long, inhabiting the warmer parts of the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans; also called Big-eyed Herring. b. A cannon throwing a ten-pound shot.
| 1695 Lond. Gaz. No. 3112/3, 69 Pieces of Cannon,..viz... 9 ten Pounders. 1699 W. Dampier Voy. II. ii. 71 Tenpounders are shaped like Mullets, but are so full of very small stiff Bones..that you can hardly eat them. 1888 Goode Amer. Fishes 407 The ‘Big-eyed Herring’ or ‘Ten-pounder’, Elops saurus. |
2. Something of the value of, or rated at, ten pounds.
a. A ten-pound note.
b. A voter in a borough who was enfranchised in virtue of occupying property of the annual value of ten pounds.
| a. 1755 Johnson s.v. Pounder, A note or bill is called a twenty pounder or ten pounder. 1829 Marryat F. Mildmay iv, I pocketed the little donation—it was a ten-pounder. 1844 Ainsworth's Mag. VI. 354, I feared I should very soon be obliged to change..my ten-pounder. 1888 C. M. Yonge Our New Mistress xii. 109 He took it from me as if I were paying him his wages, and..said..a crisp ten-pounder was a handier thing to drag about than a puling woman. |
| b. 1833 R. Southey Let. 13 Jan. in J. Aitken Eng. Lett. of XIX Century (1946) 147 The ten-pounders have sent just such members as might have been expected to Parldemonium from the great manufacturing towns. 1834 Oxford Univ. Mag. I. 46 No candidate would venture to present himself before a body of ten-pounders. 1880 Disraeli Endym. xvii, There were several old boroughs where the freemen still outnumbered the ten-pounders. |
Hence
ten-ˈpoundery nonce-wd., the body of ten-pound householders.
| 1840 Fraser's Mag. XXI. 237 He was hanged to oblige the tenpoundery of the day. |