Paradoxically, both someone who sets fires and someone who puts them out.
"But here were several fine trials; among others several brought in for making it their trade to set houses on fire merely to get plunder; and all proved by two little boys, who did give so good account of particulars that I never heard children in my life."
Samuel Pepys, Diary (July 4, 1667).
A tycoon. An industrial potentate.
Henry Miller, The Colossus of Maroussi (1941).
A woman holding a position of nobility equal to that of a duke.
"After this she was given in charge to Sir Thomas Stanley, and began her eighteen years' imprisonment in one castle after another far from London and the scenes of her many triumphs. So 'Eleanor, lately called Duchess of Gloucester,' as she is henceforth styled, passes; and the manner of her passing, her pride and her high station made a great impression on all at the time. The chroniclers record the whole episode with unusual fullness, and a contemporary poem, The Lament of the Duchess of Gloucester, puts into verse what must have been the half-formed thoughts of many:
I was besette on every side;
Of Glowcestere I was duches,
Amonge alle women magnifyed.
As Lucifer felle down for pryde,
I felle from alle felycyté:
I hade no grace my self to gyde;
Alle women may be ware by me.
At thee I take my leve this tyde.
Farewelle, Grenwych, for ever and ay;
Farewelle, fayre places on Temmys syde;
Farewelle, alle welthe and the world so wide.
I am assigned where I shall be;
Under mens kepying I must abide.
Alle women may be ware by me.
That ofte hath made me for to daunce.
Farewelle; I wott I have done wronge;
And I wyte my mysgovernaunce.
Now I lyste nother to pryke nor praunce;
My pryde ys put to poverté.
Thus, both in Englond and in Fraunce,
Alle women may be ware by me.
The title of two magistrates in ancient Rome who drew up the register or census of the citizens, etc., and had the supervision of public morals; an official in some countries whose duty it is to inspect all books, journals, dramatic pieces, etc., before publication, to secure that they shall contain nothing immoral, heretical, or offensive to the government. (OED)
"Caesar, if you should chance to handle my book,
I hope that you'll relax the frowning look
That rules the world. Soldiers are free to mock
The triumphs of you emperors--there's no shame
In a general being made a laughing-stock.
I beg you, read my verses with the same
Face as you watch Latinus on the stage
Or Thymele the dancer. Harmless wit
You may, as Censor, reasonably permit:
My life is strict, however lax my page."
Martial, The Epigrams (85 AD).
A foot soldier. An attendant or foot-servant. In early use, a runner in attendance upon a rider of rank. And, later, a servant who ran before his master's carriage, called more fully a 'running-footman' (OED).
"After dinner I went by water to Whitehall to the Privy Seal, and that done with Mr. Moore and Creed to Hide Park by coach, and saw a fine foot-race three times round the Park between an Irishman and Crow, that was once my Lord Claypoole's footman. Crow beat the other by above two miles."
Samuel Pepys, Diary (August 10, 1660). 
Someone trained in the shooting of a bow and arrow, especially as a soldier or guard.
"If wee can doe this, Cupid is no longer an archer."
Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing (1599).
“There was money to be had for our campaign, but unfortunately always money that we could not take. As soon as it became evident that we had a real movement, we began to have visits from well-dressed, smooth-spoken persons familiar with politics, who offered us the solution to all our problems. The first was a representative of a group of men who conducted a gambling game, and at that time were taking sixty-five thousand dollars a day from the people of Los Angeles. All these people wanted to know was that if I was elected Governor I would let them alone. On that basis I could have ‘anything within reason.’ I never found out how much that was, because I told the gentleman that we were not making political promises, except those in our program.”
Upton Sinclair, I, Candidate for Governor and How I Got Licked (1934).
Someone who designs and constructs military works for attack or defense. Someone who designs and constructs works of public use, such as bridges, roads, canals, railways, harbors, draining works, gas, or water works.
"Wit's an unruly engine, wildly striking Sometimes a friend, sometimes the engineer."
George Herbert, A priest to the temple (1633).
A metalworker who wields fire and bellows, hammer and anvil.
Drive me to death with din of their dints;
Such noise on nights ne heard men never,
What knaven cry and clattering of knocks!
The crooked caitiffs cryen after col! col!
And blowen their bellows that all their brain bursteth.
Huf! puf! saith that one; haf! paf! that other;
They spitten and sprawlen and spellen many spells.
They grawen and gnashen, they groan all together,
And holden them hot with their hard hammers.
Of a bull-hide be their barm-fells;
Their shanks be shackled for the fiery flinders;
Heavy hammers they have that hard be handled,
Stark strokes they striken on a steely stock,
Lus! bus! las! das! snore they by the row,
Such doleful a dream the devil it to-drive!
The master loungeth a little, and catcheth a less,
Twineth them twain and toucheth a treble,
Tik! tak! hic! hac! tiket! taket! tyk! tyk!
Lus! bus! lus! das!... Christ them give sorrow!
May no man for brenn-waters on night have his rest."
"A Poet's Complaint of the Blacksmiths," Arundel Manuscript (14th century).
A gatherer in and reseller of (almost) worthless stuff.
“He was leaving behind his few ruined sticks of furniture—a junkman had wanted to be paid to take them—and two sets of cracked dishes, also unsaleable, that Shmuel could do with whatever he wanted—use, ax, or fire—they were worth nothing.”
Bernard Malamud, The Fixer (1966).
Someone who forges metal. A smith. A counterfeiter.
"Thinke not that I have forg'd or am not able Verbatim to rehearse the Methode of my Penne."
Shakespeare, Henry VI (1591).
A clergyman.
"We therefore by this present statute have thought good to declare the following as customary and decent fashions of selling wine: to wit, that such sales should be conducted without vociferation or clamour of taverners and (so far as in the sellers lieth) without fraud; without tarrying or stay of men drinking such wines either within or at the door of the house, or within the privileged premises wherein such wines are sold; nor, when men would fain drink such wines, may any occasion be given of tarrying or staying at that same place, by the lending of cups or jugs, as is commonly done in taverns of laymen, nor may such be supplied in any way; and these manners aforesaid of selling wine are, in virtue of this present statute, to be used henceforth by clerics."
The Council of Cologne (1333).
Someone who transports good by ship, often the owner of the ship.
“Governor Rolph died, and at the height of the primary campaign came the strike against the shipowners in San Francisco. The San Francisco police were not brutal enough, and the shipowners wanted Merriam to call out the militia to break the strike. Merriam at that time was carrying on his campaign for the Republican nomination for Governor, and the week before the militia was called out his headquarters was unable to meet its payroll. Immediately after the militia was called out, a campaign committee account was opened at the Crocker National Bank in San Francisco, the initial depost being $13,700. Raymond Haight charged over the radio that the shipowners paid to Merriam’s headquarters more than $30,000 on this deal.”
In pre-colonial India, the person who collected land taxes in the district.
"Memories of Indian destitutes mix with the hordes of New York street people, and they float free, like astronauts, inside my head. I've made it. I'm making something of my life. I've left home, my husband, to get a Ph.D. in special ed. I have a multiple-entry visa and a small scholarship for two years. After that, we'll see. My mother was beaten by her mother-in-law, my grandmother, when she'd registered for French lessons at the Alliance Francaise. My grandmother, the eldest daughter of a rich zamindar, was illiterate."
Bhurati Mukherjee, The Middleman and Other Stories (1988).
A woman engaged in some humble profession, such as a Fish-wife, Ale-wife, Apple-wife, Tripe-wife, Oyster-wife, etc.
"Then came I by a wife that did custards sell."
Jack Juggler (1563).
“Gerson set little store by visions and revelations which were recent and universally spoken of, including even those of Bridget of Sweden and Catherine of Siena. He had heard so many stories of this sort that he had lost all belief in them. Someone or other would always be asserting that it had been revealed to him that he would be pope. A certain man, in particular, believed himself predestined, first, to become pope, then to be the Antichrist, so that he had thought of killing himself in order to save Christendom from such an evil.”
J. Huizinga, The Waning of the Middle Ages (1924).
The keeper of the rolls. The principal justice of the peace in a county, the keeper of the rolls and records of the sessions of the peace.
"In my way Washington overtook me and told me upon my question whether he knew of any place now void that I might have, by power over friends, that this day Mr. G. Montagu was to be made Custos Rotulorum for Westminster, and that by friends I might get to be named by him Clerk of the Peace, with which I was, as I am at all new things, very much joyed."
Samuel Pepys, Diary (March 7, 1660).
A wood worker or dealer, who specializes in handling ebony (or other ornamental woods).
Flaubert, Dictionary of Platitudes (1880).
[Translation by J. I. Rodale (1954).]
"Another disadvantage, terrible, in my opinion: The merchant is obliged to please. The worker gives his time, the manufacturer his merchandise for a certain amount of money; there you have a simple contract, and one which doesn't require that you lower yourself. Neither one nor the other needs to resort to flattery. He isn't obliged, often with a broken heart and with tears in his eyes, to be agreeable and gay all of a sudden, like that woman at the counter. The worried merchant, mortally occupied with the bill that falls due tomorrow, has to smile, has to lend himself by a cruel effort to the prattle of the elegant young woman who has him unfold a hundred items, talks for two hours and leaves without buying anything."
("Autre désavantage, terrible, à mon avis: Le marchand est obligé de plaire. L'ouvrier donne son temps, le fabricant sa marchandise pour tant d'argent; voilà un contrat simple, et qui n'abaisse pas. Ni l'un ni l'autre n'a besoin de flatter. Il n'est pas obligé, souvent le coeur navré et les yeux pleins de larmes, d'être aimable et gai tout à coup, comme cette dame de comptoir. Le marchand inquiet, mortellement occupé du billet qui échoit demain, il faut qu'il sourie, qu'il se prête, par un effort cruel, au babil de la jeune élégante qui lui fait déplier cent pièces, cause deux heures et part sans acheter.")
Jules Michelet, The People (1846).
Someone who performs the art of ventriloquism, being able to give the illusion of throwing his or her voice or making inanimate objects speak.
"As the ancient ventriloquists, when exercising their art, seemed generally to speak from their own bellies, the name was abundantly significant."
Encyclopaedia Britannica (1797).
Someone who uses fear or violence to steal a person's property.
"The people of Oeea, who were inferior in numbers, had summoned to their aid the Garamantes, a wild race incessantly occupied in robbing their neighbors. This had brought the Leptitani to extremities; their territories had been ravaged far and wide, and they were trembling within their walls, when the Garamantes were put to flight by the arrival of the auxiliary infantry and cavalry, and the whole of the booty was recaptured, with the exception of some which the plunderers, in their wanderings through inaccessible hamlets, had sold to more distant tribes."
Tacitus, Histories (100 AD).
“After having defeated Marc Antony and Cleopatra at Actium in 31 B.C., Octavian transports to Rome the treasure of the Egyptian kings. Suetonius evokes in a few words the consequences that the sudden arrival of this treasure had on the Romans’ financial life. ‘When the treasure of the Egyptian kings was brought to Rome,’ he wrote, ‘Octavian furnished such an abundance of coins that, interest rates having fallen, property values rose considerably.’”
Jean Andreau, Banking and Business in the Roman World (1999).
A mason. Someone who builds such structures as roads, houses, and bridges out of bricks.
"Listening to them fulminate against tops and bras, Jan thought of the small wooden object called a level that his grandfather, who had been a bricklayer, would routinely set on the surface of a wall as it went up. Under a tiny plate of glass in the middle of the instrument was a drop of water with a bubble in it which, according to its position, would tell whether the bricks were even or not. The Clevis family could serve as a spiritual air bubble. Offer them any idea, and they would provide a perfect indication of whether it was the best of all possible progressive ideas."
Milan Kundera, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting (1978).
A boy who hawks newspapers in the street or delivers them to people's houses.
"A news-boy had stopped in his walk, and was reading aloud the journal which it was his duty to deliver."
William Makepeace Thackeray, Roundabout Papers (1860).
An officer on a ship who sees that the orders of the commander are carried out. If the master is absent or incapable, the next in command.
