pacer
(ˈpeɪsə(r))
[Agent-n. from pace v.]
1. gen. One who paces; one who walks with measured step; one who traverses or measures (a path, distance, etc.) by pacing.
| 1835 L. Hunt Capt. Sword ii, Pacer of highway and piercer of ford. 1886 Dowden Shelley II. 500 The pacers on the terrace descried a strange sail rounding the point. |
2. A horse that paces, or whose ordinary gait is a pace: see pace n.1 6 b, v. 3.
| a 1661 Fuller Worthies, Huntington. (1662) 51 It is given to thorough-paced-Naggs, that amble naturally, to trip much whilest artificial pacers goe surest on foot. 1708 J. Chamberlayne St. Gt. Brit. i. i. iv. (1737) 32 Your New England Pads are esteemed as the swiftest Pacers. 1740 E. Baynard Health (ed. 6) 31 Be your horse a pacer, or a trotter. 1809 W. Irving Knickerb. v. vi, He entered New-Amsterdam as a conqueror, mounted on a Naraganset pacer. 1817 Sporting Mag. L. 25 The parson of the parish..mounts the old pacer. 1829 Sporting Mag. XXIII. 266 The Narraganset pacer is extinct. 1884 E. Eggleston in Century Mag. Jan. 445/1 The awkward but ‘prodigiously’ rapid natural amble of the American pacer. 1900 Field June, A pacer..canters with his hind legs, and trots with his fore legs. |
b. One who trains a horse to pace; a trainer.
| 1656 Earl of Monmouth tr. Boccalini's Advts. fr. Parnass. i. xli. (1674) 54 Coults might not put Tramels upon their Pacers. |
3. Racing. = pace-maker 1.
| 1893 Pall Mall G. 10 July 10/2 In the contest of Saturday the riders were permitted to have pacemakers; but the innovation was not entirely successful, the competitors several times overrunning the pacer. |
4. colloq. Anything that goes at a great pace.
| 1890 Cent. Dict. 1901 Farmer Slang. |
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Add: 5. Med. = pace-maker n. 3 c; occas. applied to similar devices operating on other organs.
| 1963 Amer. Jrnl. Cardiol. XI. 366/1 Within two to three days after pacer implantation, the dogs assumed normal habits of eating and exercise. 1970 Daily Tel. 18 May 4/8 Surgeons..have implanted an electronic pacer in the neck of a teenager whose breathing would stop unless he consciously thought about it. 1978 R. Ludlum Holcroft Covenant xviii. 212 The ‘pacer’ was shorted in the accident; the man died on the way to the hospital. 1988 Lancet 19 Mar. 638/1 Cardiac pacers are inserted at eight hospitals in Denmark but at 33 hospitals in Norway, which has about the same population size. |