reddlemann.
/ˈrɛdlman/, /ˈrɛdlmən/, U.S. /ˈrɛd(ə)lˌmæn/, /ˈrɛd(ə)lmən/ Now chiefly historical.
= raddleman n.
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society > trade and finance > trader > traders or dealers in specific articles > [noun] > in ruddle
ruddleman1632
raddleman1637
reddlemana1661
keelman1829
a1661 T. Fuller Worthies (1662) Rutl. 347 Raddleman then is a Reddleman, a Trade (and that a poor one) onely in this County [sc. Rutland], whence men bring on their backs a pack of red stone or Oker, which they sell to their neighbouring Countries for the marking of sheep.
1878 T. Hardy Return of Native I. i. ii. 15 The traveller with the cart was a reddleman—a person whose vocation it was to supply farmers with redding for their sheep.
1983 Burlington Mag. Feb. 116/1 The presentation is unified by the permanent presence on both floors of a reddle-man's crushed strawberry back-cloth.
2002 Boston Globe (Nexis) 1 Dec. n1 She mentions..a master dyer whose hands are permanently blue—an African version of the permanently stained hands of 19th-century British reddlemen who dug red clay to dye sheep's wool.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, September 2009; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.a1661