pushern.

1591 R. Percyvall Bibliotheca Hispanica Dict. at Corneador A pusher with the hornes.

a1622 H. Ainsworth Annot. Five Bks. Moses, Bk. Psalmes & Song of Songs (1627) xxi. 79/1 If it be knowne that the oxe was a pusher in time past.

1676 W. Wycherley Plain-dealer v. i The beggarly Pusher of his Fortune has all he has about him still only to shew.

1768 J. Hall-Stevenson Makarony Fables 33 The prose should be the squire, or usher, To grace and wait upon the verse, Not a competitor or pusher.

1784 J. Brown Compend. Hist. Brit. Churches II. 252 The uncommonly meek and calm Mr. Guthrie of Stirling he represents as a kind of forward flaming fire-brand; the almost too peaceful Mr. Livingston as a violent pusher.

1859 G. A. Sala Twice round Clock (1861) 135 The pushers of invalid perambulators.

1860 R. W. Emerson Fate in Conduct of Life (London ed.) 37 Everything is pusher or pushed: and matter and mind are in perpetual tilt and balance, so.

?1881 Census Eng. & Wales: Instr. Clerks classifying Occupations & Ages (?1885) 89 Flattening Glass Making..Pusher.

1895 Nebraska State Jrnl. 23 June 5/1 As a student he was known as a ‘pusher’; a man who was first in his classes and first in all the doings of the college.

1909 Daily Chron. 12 Oct. 4/6 It is a very difficult matter for an agent to canvass in a legitimate manner, as these special ‘pushers’ have told such glowing yarns of ‘increased bonuses and profits’.

1973 Amer. Speech 1969 44 259 Pusher, locomotive that helps to start a heavy train or to push a train up a grade.

1985 T. O'Brien Nucl. Age xi. 234 We'd get fried by the..silos and submarines and fly-boys and button-pushers.

1993 Courier-Mail (Brisbane) 15 Oct. 2/3 Did Jim Carlton fall or was he pushed? And if so, was the pusher the redoubtable Senator Bronwyn Bishop?

1699 B. E. New Dict. Canting Crew Pushers, Canary-birds new Flown that cannot Feed themselves.

1728 Bird Fancier's Recreation 30 A Pusher is a Bird that is taken three or four Days after he is flown out of the Nest.

1800 Sportsman's Dict. (new ed.) at Brancher The branchers of hawks are also called ramage-falcons; and those of nightingales, pushers.

1901 St. Nicholas May 598/1 At the front of the traveler two foremen, ‘pushers’ they are called, yell without ceasing.

1941 N.Y. Times 22 Mar. 1/7 Pushers were in control of gangs of twenty-five men and foremen had four to six gangs.

1978 N. T. DeWitt in T. E. Terrill & J. Hirsch Such as Us 200 The contractor came out and told the pusher to tell the crew that he was cutting the wages.

2002 Bakersfield Californian (Nexis) 18 Sept. Good workers can move up the ladder, becoming a ‘pusher’, or crew foreman.

1902 J. S. Farmer & W. E. Henley Slang V. 332/2 A woman: see petticoat. Hence square pusher = a girl of good reputation.

1917 Flotilla Echo: On Board H.M.A.S. No. 79 Dec. 8 Gives a photo of a pretty pusher wot 'e used to know.

1936 ‘J. Curtis’ Gilt Kid 116 Mr. Bloody Bedbug's up here having a good time with my pusher.

1944 A. Wykes in Penguin New Writing 19 xix. 105 A pusher for me. I'm off the beer, but I could use a judy.

1948 E. Partridge et al. Dict. Forces' Slang 180 Square pusher, a young woman (often abbreviated to ‘pusher’). From the traditional pre-1914 recreation of the soldier, pushing prams for nursemaids, or escorting nursemaids who had to do the pushing themselves.

1971 B. W. Aldiss Soldier Erect 19 Nelson and his pusher took the chance to sneak away, and I managed to manoeuvre Sylvia as far as the kitchen.

1925 N.Y. Amsterdam News 20 May 4/3 A book will be written by the future chronicler of the American Tennis Association, dating the annihilation of the pat ball pusher..from August 23, 1925.

1993 B. Gilbert & S. Jamison Winning Ugly (1994) viii. 88 The Pusher sits on the baseline blocking back hard-hit shot after hard-hit shot.

2013 F. Giampaolo & J. Levey Championship Tennis ix. 121 Why do players with solid primary strokes lose to pushers? They practice wrong.

1928 J. O'Connor Broadway Racketeers p. x The beer and alky runners, the junk pusher, the cannon mob and the booster.]

1929 Detective Fiction Weekly 25 May 683/1 The dealer calls the carrier... The carrier calls the ‘shovers’, sometimes known as ‘passers’ or ‘pushers’ who begin to operate. To this class belong the men who actually place the bogus money in circulation.

1938 Pop. Sci. Monthly Nov. 100/1 I always kept on buying until I had got to the higher-ups who supplied the ‘pushers’, or peddlers with their vicious wares.

1942 P. G. Wodehouse Money in Bank xix. 187 He was not without his dark suspicions of that bighearted pusher of oil shares.

1951 N.Y. Times 14 June 1/1 Encouraged by ‘pushers’ of narcotics who sometimes offered free samples to beginners.

1954 Sun (Baltimore) 5 June 1/8 Perry had come to this city..to act as a ‘pusher’ of the stolen cash.

1976 Howard Jrnl. 15 i. 46 Western loathing for temptation is vented..upon the scapegoats of the junkie and the pusher.

1995 Virginia Gaz. 30 Nov. a7/4 Such a solution is term limits for members of Congress. The latest pusher of this snake oil is Newt Gingrich.

2005 T. Hall Salaam Brick Lane i. 26 I lost count of the number of times I saw pushers selling drugs, people having their mobile phones snatched, or bikes being stolen by teenagers.

1814 T. Tindall Brit. Patent 3817 (1855) 10 This carriage..is pushed on with four pushers..fixed with joints to a double crank.

1839 A. Ure Dict. Arts 261 A pusher now acts behind the staple, and drives it home into the leather.

1852 tr. J. J. Seidel Organ & its Constr. 38 Between the two shanks a strong ledge, called the pusher, can be drawn.

1875 E. H. Knight Amer. Mech. Dict. III. 1836/2 Pusher, a form of bobbin-net machine..having independent pushers to propel the bobbins and carriages from front to back.

1916 W. Kent Mech. Engineers' Pocket-bk. (ed. 9) 919 An underfeed stoker with..moving pushers at the rear of the furnace for continuously dumping the refuse.

c1942 T. D. Perry Mod. Plywood xi. 172 The discharge from the press is by a pusher bar.

1994 Bobbin (Nexis) Aug. 60 We have 52 packing stations and 18 sortation lines with pneumatic pushers that allow us to code individual shipments by carriers as they pass a certain point in the system.

1901 Daily Rev. (Decatur, Illinois) 2 Dec. The nomenclature of the masts has been settled by the owner, Captain J. C. Crowley, who calls them, respectively, fore, main, mizzen, spanker, jigger, driver and pusher.

1909 Shipping Illustr. 25 Dec. 327/1 As is now well known, the sixth mast was denominated the driver and the seventh the pusher.

1956 Newsport (Rhode Island) Daily News 6 July 6/6 All nautical experts are agreed on the first three masts—fore, main and mizzen. After that, however, the experts seem to be divided... The fifth mast..is variously called pusher, spanker or driver. No. 6 goes under the names of jigger, driver and pusher. More agreement is had on No. 7. Three experts are agreed it should be spanker. The fourth thinks is should be pusher.

1913 Flight 7 June 613/2 The ‘pusher’, as this machine is familiarly called to distinguish it from a tractor biplane of the same make.

1915 War Illustr. 10 July 494/2 The machine was apparently a gun-carrying ‘pusher’ biplane.

1918 W. L. Cowley & H. Levy Aeronautics i. 5 The pusher type is much less efficient as a flying machine than a tractor.

1940 Sun (Baltimore) 23 Aug. 4/5 The new Nazi types are reported to be a ‘pusher’ fighter..and a medium bomber.

1991 Flight Internat. 9 Oct. 15/4 The Italian manufacturer reports strong interest from the Far East in the twin-pusher design.

1992 Pilot July 47/2 That six-seat pressurised turboprop pusher may look delicious in the colourful advertisements, but you'll have to deal directly..with the CAA if you want to build and fly one in the UK.