1900 Boston Herald 17 Jan. 1/3 The wreck was a tanker.

1905 Daily News 20 Mar. 7 A tanker stood ready in the bay to take the English residents to a place of safety.

1920 Isle of Man Examiner 2 Oct. 3 Kermode's supplied..installations..for..British Admiralty oil-tankers.

1923 R. D. Paine Comrades Rolling Ocean iv. 73 There was only four of us floated ashore on a capsized boat after the blessed tanker turned turtle.

1950 Sun (Baltimore) 19 Oct. (B ed.) 4/3 It was in 1878 that he [sc. Gustav Conrad Hansen] first put his idea into practice, converting two sailing ships into tankers.

1962 R. H. Brown Dict. Marine Insurance Terms 281 A loaded tanker is usually low in the water.

1977 R.A.F. News 11 May 4/4 Two..dinghies attended by a Swedish tanker.

1927 Daily Express 20 Sept. 2/4 The goods train consisted mainly of oil-tankers.

1947 Times 8 Mar. 4/2 Milk tankers carrying supplies for 400,000 Londoners from creameries in Shropshire.

1951 ‘J. Wyndham’ Day of Triffids xvii. 300 With a hose from the tanker which held our main petrol supply I filled the half-track's tanks to overflowing.

1960 Farmer & Stockbreeder 2 Feb. 74/1 [He] received fatal injuries..when his car was involved in a collision with a petrol tanker.

1978 J. Sherwood Limericks of Lachasse iii. 35 There were two big road tankers..in the car park. It was used as a safe overnight compound for tankers.

1931 Jrnl. Royal Aeronaut. Soc. 35 1145 It is..possible that aircraft which had become obsolete as passenger carriers might be utilised as tankers..although..recent experiments indicate that refuelling in the air will best be accomplished by the use of tankers specially designed for their duty.

1950 C. H. Latimer-Needham Refuelling in Flight i. 1 Two aircraft were equipped as tankers..and…were fitted with a 50-ft. length of hose.

1979 J. Barnett Backfire is Hostile! xiii. 145 The Russian carrier Kiev has flown off a number of strike aircraft at present refuelling from aerial tankers at low level.

1932 Times 9 Mar. 15/6 What can be done to help these tanker-men to bear or to enrich their isolation?

1974 J. Dyson P.M.'s Boat is Missing xxx. 179 Come sun-up, the tanker men could pick them off at their leisure.

1980 Times Jan. 15/4 Airlines..use a complicated logistics operation to ‘tanker’ fuel around the world to avoid particular airports where it is scarce and expensive.

1928 Daily Express 20 Feb. 13 Port Said, where the tankering costs the..Company £1,000,000 annually.

1918 Gettysburg (Pa.) Times 13 Mar. 1/3 Everything [was] prepared for the arrival of the contingent of tank engineers from Camp Meade... The failure of the ‘tankers’ to arrive was a matter of regret for people in town who were watching eagerly for the first ones to get here.

1919 W.R.A.F. on Rhine July 27 Little boys with..tanks..asking the girls to come and play... What jolly boys those Tankers were!

1940 Sun (Baltimore) 23 Sept. 11/4 There are tankers who long ago served in the same regiment when it was fully horsed.

1974 C. Ryan Bridge too Far iii. ix. 187 Taylor had hoped for the support of the tankers' guns along the fifteen-mile stretch of corridor the Screaming Eagles must control.

2009 Living Blues Feb. 20/2 I was a tank driver... I was the number one tanker.