Archivist

Someone who organizes and maintains a storehouse of books or records, preserving them so they can be retrieved and consulted when required or desired.

“All day he had been conscious of a growing desire for another of those cosy chats with Eve which had done so much to make life agreeable for him during his stay at Blandings. Her prejudice—which he deplored—in favour of doing a certain amount of work to justify her salary, had kept him during the morning away from the little room off the library where she was wont to sit cataloguing books; and when he had gone there after lunch he had found it empty. As he approached her now, he was thinking pleasantly of all those delightful walks, those excellent driftings on the lake, and those cheery conversations which had gone to cement his conviction that of all possible girls she was the only possible one. It seemed to him that in addition to being beautiful she brought out all that was best in him of intellect and soul. That is to say, she let him talk oftener and longer than any girl he had ever known.”

P.G. Wodehouse, Leave It to Psmith (1924).

Turcopolier

Commander of the light infantry or soldiers of the order of St. John of Jerusalem, and later of Rhodes and Malta.

"The Lorde Master appoynted the Prior of Rome and the Turcuplyar of England to be Capitaynes of this enterprise."

Edward Hall, Chronicle, Henry VIII (1548).

Booksellers and the Great Fire of London

A retailer or vendor of books.

"He dissected a Bookseller, and found his heart more then halfe rotted away."

Helkiah Crooke, A description of the body of man (1615).

"This day, coming home, Mr. Kirton's kinsman, my bookseller, come in my way. He do believe all the great booksellers almost undone: not only these, but their warehouses at their Hall and under Christchurch and elsewhere being all burned. A great want thereof there will be of books, specially Latin books and foreign books."

Samuel Pepys, Diary (October 5, 1666).

Tacitus on Sutlers

Merchants who follow an army, selling food, liquor, and other provisions to the troops.

"The soldiers had not anticipated the assault of the enemy; even had they done so, they had not strength to repulse it. Thus the camp was taken and plundered. Then the enemy fell upon the sutlers and Roman traders, who were wandering about in every direction, as they would in a time of peace."

Tacitus, Histories (100 AD).

Bear Baiter

An impresario who puts on a spectator sport consisting of dogs fighting a bear chained to a stake.

"The Puritan hated bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectator."

Thomas Babington Macauley, The History of England from the Accession of James II (1849).

Pilcher

A thief.

“Hang him, Pilcher, There’s nothing loves him:

his owne Cat cannot endure him.”

Women Pleas’d (1625).

Ostreiculturist

Someone who breeds or cultivates oysters.

"The sensation which has been caused in the ostricultural world in consequence of the introduction into our waters of Portuguese mollusca."

Daily Telegraph (1882).

Twain on Plumbers

Originally, someone who worked with lead, especially making and repairing lead pipes. Ancient Rome's reliance on lead pipes, and all that lead in its drinking water, is offered as one reason for its eventual decline and delirium.

“Thanksgiving Day. Let all give humble, hearty, and sincere thanks now, but the turkeys. In the island of Fiji they do not use turkeys; they use plumbers. It does not become you and me to sneer at Fiji. – Pudd’nhead Wilson’s Calendar.”

Mark Twain, Pudd’nhead Wilson (1894).

Juggler

Someone capable of tossing, catching, and keeping aloft a great number of objects at the same time. A skilled accountant.

"But after dinner was all our sport, when there come in a juggler, who indeed did shew us so good tricks as I have never seen in my life, I think, of legerdemaine, and such as my wife hath since seriously said that she would not believe but that he did them by the help of the devil."

Samuel Pepys, Diary (May 24, 1667).

"All the little tricks of finance which the expertest juggler of the treasury can practise."

Edmund Burke, Observations on the present State of the Nation (1769).

Twain and Tolstoy on Undertakers

Someone who arranges funerals. Also a term for a book-publisher, stage producer, contractor, or tax collector.

"If Emmeline Grangerford could make poetry like that before she was fourteen, there ain't no telling what she could 'a' done by and by. Buck said she could rattle off poetry like nothing. She didn't ever have to stop to think. He said she would slap down a line, and if she couldn't find anything to rhyme with it would just scratch it out and slap down another one, and go ahead. She warn't particular; she could write about anything you choose to give her to write about just so it was sadful. Every time a man died, or a woman died, or a child died, she would be on hand with her 'tribute' before he was cold. She called them tributes. The neighbors said it was the doctor first, then Emmeline, then the undertaker--the undertaker never got in ahead of Emmeline but once, and then she hung fire on a rhyme for the dead person's name, which was Whistler. She warn't ever the same after that; she never complained, but she kinder pined away and did not live long."

Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn (1884).

"When Lothario turns to God, the undertaker gets ready his bill."

--Leo Tolstoi.

Diplomat

A political go-between.

"Diplomacy: fine career, but bristling with difficulties, full of mysteries. Appropriate only for people of noble birth. Profession vague in meaning, but ranking above commerce. A diplomat always has shrewdness and insight."

Flaubert, Dictionary of Platitudes (1880).

[Translation by J. I. Rodale (1954).]

“His office was in the heart of the Wall Street area—in that area’s most imposing structure, the New York Fed’s Florentine palazzo on Liberty Street—and his duties included serving as the government’s banker in all foreign dealings, so he and the new President were stuck with each other whether they liked it or not. A Yale and Harvard Law School graduate, a former legal secretary to the legendary Justice Holmes, a careful bureaucrat and a tactful diplomat, Harrison was a handsome, heavy-set, pipe-smoking, crinkly-eyed, confidence-inspiring sort of man—the more confidence-inspiring, perhaps, because he walked with a limp as a result of a childhood accident. He was destined over the months ahead to have his talent for diplomacy put to the comically excruciating test of adjudicating among Roosevelt and his wilder-eyed henchmen, the irascible commercial bankers of Wall Street, and the lordly central bankers of Europe.”

John Brooks, Once in Golconda (1970).

Tide-waiter

Someone who enforced customhouse regulations, boarding ships that arrived with the tide.

“These tidewaiters and surveyors plague us more with the French wines than the war did with the French privateers.”

George Farquhar, The Constant Couple (1700).

Leapers and Tumblers

A dancer.

"With a leaperesse, or tumbler, be thou not besy."

John Wyclif, Ecclesiastes (1382).

Putyer

A pimp or whoremonger.

"Ha what comyth this wenche here wyth this putyer in this contree?"

William Caxton, Six bookes of the Metamorphoses of Ovyde (1480).

Impresario

A fancy name for someone who puts on operas, concerts, or other public entertainment.

Of the Coney Island dance hall impresarios of the 19^th century: “How seriously all these men out in front of the dens take their vocations. They regard people with a voracious air, as if they contemplated any moment making a rush and a grab and mercilessly compelling a great expenditure. This scant and feeble crowd must madden them. When I first came to this part of the town I was astonished and delighted, for it was the nearest approach to a den of wolves that I had encountered since leaving the West.”

Stephen Crane, Other Writings About New York, “Coney Island’s Failing Days” (1894-6).

Troubadour

One of a class of lyric poets, living in southern France, eastern Spain, and northern Italy, from the 11th to the 13th centuries, who sang in Provençal (langue d'oc), chiefly of chivalry and gallantry, sometimes including wandering minstrels and jongleurs (OED).

“When in the twelfth century unsatisfied desire was placed by the troubadours of Provence in the centre of the poetic conception of love, an important turn in the history of civilization was effected. Antiquity, too, had sung the sufferings of love, but it had never conceived them save as the expectation of happiness or as its pitiful frustration. The sentimental point of Pyramus and Thisbe, of Cephalus and Procris, lies in their tragic end; in the heart-rending loss of a happiness already enjoyed.”

J. Huizinga, The Waning of the Middle Ages (1924).

Screever

Someone who draws pictures or appeals on the sidewalk to solicit donations from passersby. Chalk it up to human ingenuity.

"The pavement artist, or 'scriever,' as he is called in the profession."

Marks, Pen & Pencil Sk. (1894).

Scriveners and the Lotus Sutra

A professional copyist. A notary. A clerk. A penman.

"For some years now she had had scriveners at work on the thousand copies of the Lotus Sutra that were to be her final offering to the Blessed One. They had their studios at Nijo, which she still thought of as home. Now the work was finished, and she made haste to get ready for the dedication."

Murasaki Shikibu, The Tale of Genji (11th Century).

[Translated by Edward G. Seidensticker.]

Claude Levi-Strauss on Painters

“And yet, artists have long been judged bytheir capacity to imitate reality to perfection—a criterion that still prevailed in our own culture until recently. The Greeks had a wealth of anecdotes to extol their painters: painted grapes that birds tried to peck at, equine images that horses mistook for their fellow creatures, and a painted curtain that the artist’s rival demanded be lifted in order to reveal the picture hidden beneath. Legend has credited Giotto and Rembrandt with the same sorts of feats, and the Chinese and Japanese had very similar myths concerning their own famous painters: painted horses that leave the picture at night to graze and dragons that fly into the air as the artist applies the finishing touch. In North America, the Plains tribes made a mistake in a similar vein when they first saw a white painter, Catlin, at work. He had drawn one of them in profile; another, no great friend of the first, cried out on seeing the picture that it proved the model was but half a man. A deadly fight ensued.”

Claude Lévi-Strauss, Look, Listen, Read (1993).

[Translated by Brian C. J. Singer.]

Peasant

A member of the class comprising small farmers and tenants, sharecroppers, and laborers on the land where these constitute the main labor force in agriculture (American Heritage).

"The peasant's ordinary days, however, were spent in steady labour on his own lands and on those of his lord. The rhythm of the seasons held him in thrall. Ceaselessly he laboured; preparing, planting, tending, reaping--round and round he went with the passage of the months."

Six Medieval Men & Women, "Richard Bradwater," H. S. Bennett (1955).

"As soon as you're born, they make you feel small

By giving you no time instead of it all,

Until the pain is so big you feel nothing at all.

A working-class hero is something to be.

A working-class hero is something to be.

They hurt you at home and they hit you at school.

They hate you if you're clever and they despise a fool,

Until you're so fucking crazy you can't follow their rules.

(Refrain)

When they've tortured and scared you for 20-odd years,

Then they expect you to pick a career,

When you can't really function you're so full of fear.

(Refrain)

You've been doped with religion and sex and t.v.

And you think you're so clever and classless and free.

But you're still fucking peasants as far as I can see.

(Refrain)

There's room at the top they're telling you still.

But first you must learn to smile as you kill,

If you want to be like the folks on the hill.

(Refrain)

If you want to be a hero, well just follow me.

If you want to be a hero, well just follow me."

John Lennon, Working Class Hero (1970).

Gleeman

A professional singer who entertains people at social gatherings. A wandering musician. A minstrel.

"Bledgaret passede alle his predecessoures in musik and in melodie, so that he was i-cleped god of glee men."

John De Trevisa, Polychronicon Ranulphi Higden (1387).

Paymaster

An officer in the army or navy who pays troops or workmen.

"Both good and evil are sure paymasters at the last."

Bishop Joseph Hall, Contemplations (1615).

Legate

A delegate, ambassador, or messenger. An ecclesiastic with the authority to represent the Pope.

"He suffered the legates from Utrecht to return with their heads upon their shoulders."

John Motley, The Rise of the Dutch Republic (1855).

Provost

A chief, president, superintendent, ruler, manager, or overseer, in religious, military, educational, and secular settings. An officer charged wtih apprehending, imprisoning, and punishing miscreants.

"Among the apprehenders, the chief are called Provosts, and they of old had power to hang vagabonds."

Fynes Moryson, An Itinerary (1617).

Street-walker

A prostitute for whom the street serves as a drafty reception hall.

"On rainy night thy breath blows chill

In the street-walker's dripping hair."

Buchanan, Poems, Pan Epilogue (1870).

Twain on Cursing Scowmen

Someone who navigates a scow, which is a wide, flat boat with square ends used for transporting material.

"He raged and stormed so (he was crossing the river at the time) that I judged it made him blind, because he ran over the steering-oar of a trading scow. Of course the traders sent up a volley of red-hot profanity. Never was a man so grateful as Mr. Bixby was; because he was brimful, and here were subjects who could talk back. He threw open a window, thrust his head out, and such an irruption followed as I never had heard before. The fainter and farther away the scowmen's curses drifted, the higher Mr. Bixby lifted his voice and the weightier his adjectives grew. When he closed the window he was empty. You could have drawn a seine through his system and not caught curses enough to disturb your mother with."

Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi (1883).

The Archbishop and the Hatter

In a religious hierarchy, the archbishop is the leader of a phalanx of bishops and their subordinates. Only capable of moving diagonally.

“It is a matter of temperament and belief whether you read this list with respect or with boredom; whether you look upon an archbishop’s hat as a crown or as an extinguisher. If, like the present reviewer, you are ready to hold the simple faith that the outer order corresponds to the inner—that a vicar is a good man, a canon a better man, and an archbishop the best man of all—you will find the study of the Archbishop’s life one of extreme fascination. He has turned aside from poetry and philosophy and law, and specialized in virtue. He has dedicated himself to the service of the Divine. His spiritual proficiency has been such that he has developed from deacon to dean, from dean to bishop, and from bishop to archbishop in the short space of twenty years. As there are only two archbishops in the whole of England the inference seems to be that he is the second best man in England; his hat is the proof of it. Even in a material sense his hat was one of the largest; it was larger than Mr. Gladstone’s; larger than Thackeray’s; larger than Dickens’; it was in fact, so his hatter told him and we are inclined to agree, an ‘eight full.’”

Virginia Woolf, “Outlines,” The Common Reader (1925).

Jurat

A municipal magistrate in certain towns, as Bordeaux. A member of a company or corporation, sworn to see that nothing is done against its statutes (OED).

“After his return from Italy and his marriage, Pierre began a political career in Bordeaux. He was elected jurat and provost in 1530, then deputy mayor in 1537, and finally mayor in 1554. This period saw difficult times in the city: a new local tax on salt in 1548 inspired riots, which ‘France’ punished by stripping Bordeaux of many legal rights. As mayor, Pierre did what he could to restore its fortunes, but the privileges came back slowly. The stress damaged his health. Just as his tales of war atrocities may have put Montaigne off the military life, so the sight of Pierre’s exhaustion encouraged him to keep more distance from the job when he too became mayor of Bordeaux some thirty years later.”

Sarah Bakewell, How to Live or A Life of Montaigne (2010).

Charwoman

A woman hired by the day to come in and do odd jobs about the house.

“No such restraints were laid on Dostoevsky. It is all the same to him whether you are noble or simple, a tramp or a great lady. Whoever you are, you are the vessel of this perplexed liquid, this cloudy, yeasty, precious stuff, the soul. The soul is not restrained by barriers. It overflows, it floods, it mingles with the souls of others. The simple story of a bank clerk who could not pay for a bottle of wine spreads, before we know what is happening, into the lives of his father-in-law and the five mistresses whom his father-in-law treated abominably, and the postman’s life, and the charwoman’s, and the Princesses’ who lodged in the same block of flats; for nothing is outside Dostoevsky’s province; and when he is tired, he does not stop, he goes on. He cannot restrain himself. Out it tumbles upon us, hot, scalding, mixed, marvelous, terrible, oppressive—the human soul.”

Virginia Woolf, “The Russian Point of View,” The Common Reader (1925).

Exterminator

An animal hounder and bouncer.

“The document read: ‘This will certify that the bearer of same, Comrade Polygraph Polygraphovich Sharikov, is the director of the sub-section for purging the city of Moscow of stray animals (cats, etc.) of the Moscow Communal Property Adminstration.’

"‘I see,’ Philip Philippovich said with difficulty. ‘And who arranged this for you? However, I can easily guess it myself.’

"‘Well, yes, it was Shvonder,’ replied Sharikov.

"‘And may I inquire, what is this nauseating smell that you are spreading?’

"Sharikov sniffed his jacket with a worried air. ‘Well, what can you do, it smells… Naturally—it’s the profession. We choked them and choked them yesterday… Cats.’”

Mikhail Bulgakov, Heart of a Dog (1925).

Chandler

Someone who makes or sells candles.

“He feared the prison would go badly for him and it went badly at once. It’s my luck, he thought bitterly. What do they say?—‘If I dealt in candles the sun wouldn’t set.’ Instead, I’m Yakov Fixer and it sets each hour on the stroke. I’m the kind of man who finds it perilous to be alive. One thing I must learn is to say less—much less, or I’ll ruin myself. As it is I’m already ruined.”

Bernard Malamud, The Fixer (1966).

"Who must die must die in the dark, even though he sells candles."

--Colombian proverb.

Autobiographers, Sir Thomas Browne and Montaigne

Someone who writes the story of his or her own life.

“But the publicity of the stage and the perpetual presence of a second person were hostile to that growing consciousness of one’s self, that brooding in solitude over the mysteries of the soul, which, as the years went by, sought expression and found a champion in the sublime genius of Sir Thomas Browne. His immense egotism has paved the way for all psychological novelists, autobiographers, confession-mongers, and dealers in the curious shades of our private life.”

Virginia Woolf, “The Elizabethan Lumber Room,” The Common Reader (1925).

“By writing so openly about his everyday observations and inner life, Montaigne was breaking a taboo. You were not supposed to record yourself in a book, only your great deeds, if you had any. The few Renaissance autobiographies so far written, such as Benvenuto Cellini’s Vita sua and Girolamo Cardano’s De vita propria, had been left unpublished largely for this reason. St. Augustine had written about himself, but as a spiritual exercise and to document his search for God, not to celebrate the wonders of being Augustine. Montaigne did celebrate being Montaigne. This disturbed some readers. The classical scholar Joseph Justus Scaliger was especially annoyed about Montaigne’s revelation, in his later edition of 1588, that he preferred white wine to red. (Actually Scaliger was oversimplifying. Montaigne tells us that he changed his tastes from red to white, then back to red, then to white again.) Pierre Dupuy, another scholar, asked, ‘Who the hell wants to know what he liked?’ Naturally it annoyed Pascal and Malebranche too; Malebranche called it ‘effrontery,’ and Pascal thought Montaigne should have been told to stop.”

Sarah Bakewell, How to Live or A Life of Montaigne (2010).

Erasmus on Spongers, Etc.

Someone who dives for sponges. Someone who lives off of others' generosity. A parasite.

"And of all the deeds which win praise, isn't war the seed and source? But what is more foolish than to embark on a struggle of this kind for some reason or other when it does more harm than good to either side? For those who fall in battle, like the men of Megara, are 'of no acount'. When the mail-clad ranks confront each other and the trumptets 'blare out their harsh note', what use, I ask you, are those wise men who are worn out with their studies and can scarcely draw breath now their blood is thin and cold? The need is for stout and sturdy fellows with all the daring possible and the minimum of brain. Of course some may prefer a soldier like Demonsthenes, who took Archilochus' advice and had scarcely glimpsed the enemy before he threw away his shield and fled, as cowardly in battle as he was skilled in speechmaking. People say that judgment matters most in war, and so it does for a general, I agree, but it's a soldier's judgment, not a philosopher's. Otherwise it's the spongers, pimps, robbers, murderers, peasants, morons, debtors, and that sort of scum of the earth who provide the glories of war, not the philosophers and their midnight oil."

Erasmus, Praise of Folly (1509)

[translated by Betty Radice, notes by A. H. T. Levi (1993)].

The Penurious Warehouseman

Someone who owns or works in a warehouse. A wholesale merchant.

"His richest warehouse is a greasie pocket,

And two pence in tobacco still does stocke it."

Samuel Rowlands, The Knave of Spades (1612).

Virginia Woolf on an Entomologist

A scientist who studies insects.

“‘English entomologists care little or nothing for objects of practical importance,’ she exclaimed suddenly. ‘Take this question of flour infestation—I can’t say how many grey hairs that hasn’t grown me.’

‘Figuratively speaking, Miss Ormerod,’ said Dr. Lipscomb, for her hair was still raven black.

‘Well, I do believe all good work is done in concert,’ Miss Ormerod continued. ‘It is often a great comfort to me to think that.’

‘It’s beginning to rain,’ said Dr. Lipscomb. ‘How will your enemies like that, Miss Ormerod?’

‘Hot or cold, wet or dry, insects always flourish!’ cried Miss Ormerod, energetically sitting up in bed.”

Virginia Woolf, “The Lives of the Obscure,” The Common Reader (1925).

Pepys Interviews a Link-boy

A boy who carried a torch, called a link, to light the way for people at night.

"So homewards and took up a boy that had a lanthorn, that was picking up of rags, and got him to light me home, and had great discourse with him, how he could get sometimes three or four bushells of rags in a day, and got 3d. a bushell for them, and many other discourses, what and how many ways there are for poor children to get their livings honestly. So home and to bed at 12 o'clock at night."

Samuel Pepys, Diary (March 25, 1661).

Prowler

Someone who goes around looking for prey or plunder. A pilferer.

“At this moment I suddenly noticed that the audience was gazing in our directon with a good deal of interest, and I saw that the bearded chappie was pointing at us.

‘Yes, look at them! Drink them in!’ he was yelling, his voice rising above the perpetual-motion fellow’s and beating the missionary service all to nothing. ‘There you see two typical members of the class which has down-trodden the poor for centuries. Idlers! Non-producers! Look at the tall thin one with the face like a motor-mascot. Has he ever done an honest day’s work in his life? No! A prowler, a trifler, and a blood-sucker! And I bet he still owes his tailor for those trousers!’ He seemed to me to be verging on the personal, and I didn’t think a lot of it. Old Bittlesham, on the other hand, was pleased and amused. ‘A great gift of expression these fellows have,’ he chuckled. ‘Very trenchant.’

‘And the fat one!’ proceeded the chappie. ‘Don’t miss him. Do you know who that is? That’s Lord Bittlesham! One of the worst. What has he ever done except eat four square meals a day? His god is his belly, and he sacrifices burnt-offerings to it. If you opened that man now you would find enough lunch to support ten working-class families for a week.’ ‘You know, that’s rather well put,’ I said, but the old boy didn’t seem to see it. He had turned a brightish magenta and was bubbling like a kettle on the boil.”

P. G. Wodehouse, The Inimitable Jeeves (1923).

Herald

Someone hired to make public announcements. Someone who noted the sun's passage through noon and informed the Roman citizens that afternoon had begun. One who practices the art or science of blazoning armorial bearings and settling the right of persons to bear arms or certain bearings, in connexion with which it deals with the tracing and recording of pedigrees, and deciding of questions of precedence (OED).

"Nature soon covers the work of man in wood or stone with a carpet of moss and her own heraldry of lichens."

Century Magazine (1889).

Scrutineer

Someone who looks closely as something, especially one employed to examine, count, or scrutinize votes in an election.

"The balloting began at eleven o'clock in the forenoon, and ended at six, when the scrutineers reported to the Directors."

The Gentleman's Magazine (1773).

Squire

In the military organization of the later Middle Ages, a squire is a young man of good birth attendant upon a knight. One ranking next to a knight under the feudal system of military service and tenure (OED).

"One day, then, when I would have joined Herr Neidhart and his troopers in their hostel, who indeed were mostly drunken, there among others I met this aforesaid Ape, and he was very heavy with drink and had much wind in his nose, and spake strange words. 'What brings this squireling hither?' quoth he; 'is he also to be one of us?' and suchlike scornful words, wherewith he thought to provoke me to wrath. This angered me, and I answered him 'What care I for thy scornful speeches and thy drunkenness? If we meet one day in the field, then we will see who of us twain is squire, and who is trooper.'"

Goetz von Berlichingen, Autobiography (1502).

The Adventures of a Piecener

A child or young person employed in a spinning-mill to keep the frames filled with rovings, and to join together the ends of threads which break while being spun or wound (OED).

“The children whose duty it is to walk backwards and forwards before the reels, on which the cotton, silk, or worsted is wound, for the purpose of joining the threads when they break, are called piecers or pieceners.”

Frances Trollope, The Life and Adventures of Michael Armstrong, factory boy (1839).

Mameluk

A fighting slave. A member of the military body, originally composed of Caucasian slaves, which seized the throne of Egypt in 1254, and continued to form the ruling class in that country until the early part of the 19th century (OED).

"The Egyptians lived under vassalage to their own Mamaluchi or Mercenaries."

Clement Walker, History of Independency (1648).

No Morsel for Mowers

Someone who cuts grass or other crops with a scythe or sickle.

"Lais an harlot of Corinthe of excellent beautie, but so dear & costly that she was no morsel for mowers."

Nicolas Udall, Erasmus' Apophthegmes (1542).

Lockman

A turnkey. A jailor. A public executioner. A coroner's summoner.

"Why has thou me alone in langour left?

Delivering me unto this lockman Love."

Alexander Montgomerie, Miscellaneous Poems (1600).

Cigar-end gatherer

A scavenger catering to people, not overly particular, whose taste exceeds their budget.

"Cigar-end gathering is practiced more or less in every large town. The man who picks up thrown away cigar ends does not do so to smoke but to sell them."

Pall Mall Gazette (1886).

Arsonist

Someone who sets fires for hire, skilled at making combustion appear spontaneous.

“‘We are poor people,’ the macher said, apologetically. ‘God loves the poor people but he helps the rich. The insurinks companies are rich. They take away your money and what they give you? Nothing. Don’t feel sorry for the insurinks companies.’ He proposed a fire. He would make it swiftly, safely, economically—guaranteed to collect. From his pocket he produced a strip of celluloid. ‘You know what is this?’ Morris, staring at it, preferred not to say. ‘Celluloy,’ hissed the macher. He struck a large yellow match and lit the celluloid. It flared instantly. He held it a second then let it fall to the counter, where it quickly burned itself out. With a poof he blew away nothing. Only the stench remained, floating in air.”

Bernard Malamud, The Assistant (1957).

Mailer

Someone who pays rent, the opposite of a landowner.

"A specie of cottagers, here called meallers, who build a small house for themselves, on a waste piece of ground, with the consent of the proprietor, and there, are ready to hire themselves out as day-labourers."

Statistical Account of Scotland (1792).

Janitor

A resident broom-man. The person who scatters the sawdust in elementary school hallways.

“A dog is hard to kill, his spirit clings to life. But my body is broken and battered, it’s taken its share of punishment from people. And the worst of it is that the boiling water he slopped over me ate right through the fur, and now my left side is without protection of any kind. I can very easily contract pneumonia, and once I do, my dear citizens, I’ll die of hunger. With pneumonia, you’re supposed to lie under the stairs in a front hallway. But who will run around for me, a sick bachelor dog, and look for sustenance in garbage heaps? Once my lung is affected, I’ll be crawling on my belly, feeble as a pup, and anyone can knock the daylight out of me with a stick. And then the janitors with their badges will grab me by the feet and throw me on the garbage collector’s cart. Of all the proletarians, janitors are the worst trash. Human dregs—the lowest category.”

Mikhail Bulgakov, Heart of a Dog (1925).

[Translated by Mirra Ginsburg].

Spinner

One who spins yarn or thread from wool or cotton.

"It seemed as if, first in her own fire within the house, and then in the fiery haze without, she tried to discover what kind of woof Old Time, that greatest and longest-established Spinner of all, would weave from the threads he had already spun into a woman. But his factory is a secret place, his work is noiseless, and his Hands are mutes."

Charles Dickens, Hard Times (1854).

Pickpocket

A thief skilled in prestidigitation.

“I never know, when I’m telling a story, whether to cut the thing down to plain facts or whether to drool on and shove in a lot of atmosphere, and all that. I mean, many a cove would no doubt edge into the final spasm of this narrative with a long description of Goodwood, featuring the blue sky, the rolling prospect, the joyous crowds of pickpockets, and the parties of the second part who were having their pockets picked, and—in a word, what not. But better give it a miss, I think. Even if I wanted to go into details about the bally meeting I don’t think I’d have the heart to. The thing’s too recent. The anguish hasn’t had time to pass. You see, what happened was that Ocean Breeze (curse him!) finished absolutely nowhere for the Cup. Believe me, nowhere. These are the times that try men’s souls. It’s never pleasant to be caught in the machinery when a favourite comes unstitched, and in the case of this particular dashed animal, one had come to look on the running of the race as a pure formality, a sort of quaint, old-world ceremony to be gone through before one sauntered up to the bookie and collected.”

P. G. Wodehouse, The Inimitable Jeeves (1923).

Pamphleteer

A writer or printer of shortish, inexpensively produced tracts, often written anonymously. The word comes from a Latin love poem entitled "Pamphilus seu de Amore."

"Though you doe not speak plaine, your pamphleteers do."

Peter Heylin, Relations and Observations (1648).

Monkey Exhibitors and Monkey Money

Someone who makes money off the antics of a trained monkey.

“On bears and popinjays (parrots) there was an admittance toll levied, which was paid at the Passage du Petit-Châtelet, in front of the Petit-Pont. As for monkeys, ‘The Rules Governing the Trades of Paris, by Etienne Boilève, Provost of this City’, lays down the following: ‘The Merchant who brings a Monkey to sell must pay four deniers: and if the Monkey belongs to someone who has bought it for his own amusement, it is exempt, and if the Monkey belongs to an exhibitor, the exhibitor must give a performance for the toll-collector, and in exchange for his performance be exempted on everything he buys for his needs: and mistrels too are exempted in exchange for singing one verse of a song.’ What this amounts to is that the animal exhibitor, instead of paying the four-denier toll the merchant has to pay, would pay his due in songs and capers. Hence the expression: payer en monnaie de singe, literally, to pay with monkey money, i.e., avoid paying a debt, with fine words and empty promises.”

Jacques Yonnet, Paris Noir: The Secret History of a City (1954).

[Translated by Christine Donougher]

Rutter

A member of a gang of swindlers. A cavalry soldier (especially from Germany) employed in the wars of the 16th and 17th centuries.

"Four persons were required to perform their cosning commodity. The Taker-up, the Verser, the Barnard and the Rutter."

Greene's works, The defence of conny catching, To the Reader (1591).

Skipper

A ship captain.

"After we had driven half a day under sail from Riga, then the Skipper, Bernhard Schultz of Luebeck, called us together according to custom and made the usual speech to us, who were forty-seven all told, to the following purport: 'Seeing that we are now at the mercy of God and the elements, each shall henceforth be held equal to his fellows, without respect of persons. And because, on this voyage, we are in jeopardy of sudden tempests, pirates, monsters of the deep and other perils, therefore we cannot navigate the ship without strict government. Wherefore I do hereby most earnestly warn and instantly beseech every man, all and singular, that we hear first of all a reading of God's word from the Scriptures, both text and notes; and then that we approach God steadfastly with prayer and hymn that He may vouchsafe us fair winds and a prosperous journey."

T. D. Wunderer (1590) [Fichard, Frankfurtisches Archiv, Band II, S. 245].

Aedile

In ancient Rome, the aediles were magistrates in charge of public buildings, streets, etc. Among the French the term is still used as a fancy way to refer to municipal officers.

"Thunder against, with respect to street-paving: 'What are our aediles thinking about?'"

Gustave Flaubert, Dictionary of Platitudes (1880).

[Translation by J. I. Rodale (1954).]

Memoir-Writer

A gatherer of memories (i.e. a writer who frames an account of his or her own personal experiences).

"When two memoir-writers had told the same tale, Suetonius and Tacitus accept it and endorse it, without a suspicion that both may be lying."

W. G. Clark, Vacation Tour (1860).

Roaster

Someone who applies and tends the fire and roasts coffee, malt, or other food.

"Muster up all the Fidlers in the Town; let not so much as the Roaster of Tunes, with his crack'd cymbal in a case, escape ye."

Thomas Otway, The Cheats of Scapin (1677).

Vate

A prophetic poet of the Gaulish druids.

"Druid was the general name of the Sect or Order; and their Literati were divided into Priests, Vates, and Bards, who were their Divines."

Lachlan Shaw, The history of the province of Moray (1775).

Pin Man

A pin pusher.

“Here’s your old Pin Man, a coming agen.”

Crys of London 36 in The Bagford Ballads (1680).

Lodeman

A guide. A leader. A pilot.

"If a ship is lost by default of the lodeman, the maryners may bring the lodeman to the windlass or any other place, and cut off his head."

Laws of Oleron in Black Book Admiralty (Rolls) (1536).

Brecht on Criminals

Someone who breaks the law in pursuit of illicit gain. A generalist.

“When Mr. Keuner, the thinking man, heard

That the most famous criminal of the city of New York

A smuggler of alcohol and a mass-murderer

Had been shot down like a dog and

Buried without ceremony

He expressed nothing but dismay.

‘How,’ he said, ‘has it come to this

That not even the criminal is sure of his life

And not even he, who is prepared to do anything

Has a measure of success?

Everyone knows that those are lost

Who are concerned for their human dignity.

But those who discard it?

Shall it be said: he who escaped the depths

Falls on the heights?

At night the righteous start from their sleep bathed in sweat

The softest footstep fills them with alarm

Their good conscience pursues them even in their sleep

And now I hear: the criminal, too

Can no longer sleep peacefully?

What confusion!

What times these are!’”

Bertolt Brecht, Stories of Mr. Keuner (1965).

[Translated by Martin Chalmers]

Right-hand man

A soldier holding a position of responsibility or command on the right of a troop of horse.

"O wha has slain my right-hand man, That held my hawk and hound?"

Earl Richard in Sir Walter Scott, The minstrelsy of the Scottish border (1802).

Murenger

The official responsible for keeping a city's walls in good repair.

"The charter of Henry VII provides that the mayor and citizens of Chester, may yearly choose two citizens to be overseers of the walls, called Muragers."

Municipal Corporations' Report (1506).

Hospodar

Meaning "lord," a title used by the governors of Walachia and Moldavia.

"Sounds well in a sentence apropos of 'the Eastern question.'"

("This was the title of the Sultan-appointed princes and governors of Moldavia and Wallachia from the fifteenth century till the end of the Crimean war. The congress that met in Paris in 1856 to settle various questions involved in the terms for the peace treaty recognized the independence of these countries, proclaimed their union, abolished the title and rule of the hospodars, and substituted a constitutional form of government.")

Flaubert, Dictionary of Platitudes (1880).

[Translation by J. I. Rodale (1954).]

Brewer

Someone who makes malt liquors. A beer maker.

"Brewers by retailing filthy Thames water, come in a few years to be worth forty or fifty thousand pound."

Thomas Nashe, Pierce Penilesse his supplication to the divell (1592).

Joyce on Chemists

An alchemist. A scientist specializing in chemistry. A pharmacist or druggist.

“The chemist turned back page after page. Sandy shrivelled smell he seems to have. Shrunken skull. And old. Quest for the philosopher’s stone. The alchemists. Drugs age you after mental excitement. Lethargy then. Why? Reaction. A lifetime in a night. Gradually changes your character. Living all the day among herbs, ointments, disinfectants. All his alabaster lilypots. Mortar and pestle. Aq. Dist. Fol. Laur. Te Virid. Smell almost cure you like the dentist’s doorbell. Doctor Whack. He ought to physic himself a bit. Electuary or emulsion. The first fellow that picked an herb to cure himself had a bit of pluck. Simples. Want to be careful. Enough stuff here to chloroform you. Test: turns blue litmus paper red. Chloroform. Overdose of laudanum. Sleeping draughts. Lovephiltres. Paragoric poppysyrup bad for cough. Clogs the pores or the phlegm. Poisons the only cures. Remedy where you least expect it. Clever of nature.”

James Joyce, Ulysses (1914-1921).