1891 Answers 4 Apr. 338/1 Having filled the premises with pictures,..the auctioneer engages the assistance of what are known in the business as ‘punters’. The ‘punter’..is the auctioneer's confederate, and it is his duty..to make sham bids.

1891 Answers 4 Apr. 338/3 In addition to bidding, a ‘punter’ will often assist the auctioneer in cajoling the public.

1941 S. J. Baker N.Z. Slang vi. 52 We have also acquired [this century] some underworld slang of our own:..punter, an assistant of a pickpocket who diverts the victim's attention while robbery is committed.

1973 ‘J. Patrick’ Glasgow Gang Observed iii. 28 ‘Punter’ was ‘a normal man where you live who never gets caught’, to whom you took stolen goods and traded them in for guns, ‘blades’, or money.

1973 ‘J. Patrick’ Glasgow Gang Observed iii. 29 They were the people who sold bottles of wine at extortionate prices on Sundays... The word was also generalized to mean a member of a ‘team’ or gang, as in the much used phrase ‘Ya Cumbie punter’.

1975 Sunday Times 23 Feb. (Colour Suppl.) 25/2 There's nuthin' but deid punters walkin' up and doon, wi' their beds under their airms.

1976 Sunday Mail (Glasgow) 28 Nov. 12 (caption) Ya eejit! Ah'm talkin' aboot thae punters inra Housa Lords..yir upper-crust.

1992 J. Torrington Swing Hammer Swing! vi. 48 Ask yersel, go on, why should a Londoner get three sheets mair'n a Glesca punter? Aye, for doing the same job?

1993 I. Welsh Trainspotting 302 Now it's a playground for failed Oxbridge home-counties types, with a few Edinburgh merchant-school punters representing Scotland.

1814 P. Hawker Diary (1893) I. 91 All over Poole harbour..according to report of punters..the same..scarcity prevailed.

1859 H. C. Folkard Wild-fowler liv. 285 Punters have, generally, a great antipathy to shore-gunners.

1906 Daily News 16 Sept. 6 Pangbourne, the sylvan haunt of the Thames angler, the summer retreat of the Saturday-to-Monday punter.

1948 H. Benham Last Stronghold of Sail xix. 157 The average old wildfowler will tell you that a good man bags..more fowl in a season to-day than the average punter got, say, fifty years ago.

1875 A. Helps Social Pressure xx. 290 The punter, very nearly got upset, holding on stoutly to his punting-pole when it stuck in the mud.

1891 W. Morris News from Nowhere xxvi. 194 They..waved us a pretty farewell as the punters set them over toward the other shore.

1955 Times 25 May 11/4 To watch the punter in his pride, you have to catch him in an aquatic traffic jam.

2005 Guardian (Nexis) 24 May 2 Outside it is sunny and sounds of merriment float up from punters on the river.

1887 N.Y. Times 25 Nov. 1/7 Whenever he was pressed Beecher sent the ball to Bull, the full back, and a swinging kick from that gifted punter sent it careening back toward the centre field.

1890 D. D. Bone Sc. Football Reminisc. & Sketches 67 He had decidedly the advantage over the modern ‘punter’.

1910 W. Camp Bk. of Foot-ball viii. 314 Accuracy should be an aim of the punter as much as distance.

1956 V. Jenkins Lions Rampant iv. 58 Thus,..an enormous punter as well as goal-kicker, sent them back..yards at a time.

1977 New Yorker 3 Oct. 111/1 Curry, up to now a demon punter, could not average better than twenty-nine yards a kick.

2004 Wall St. Jrnl. 12 Nov. (Central ed.) w16/3 The Browns go nowhere, their punter shanks his kick and Baltimore scores on a two-yard run by Jamal Lewis.