Sticker

Someone who slaughters pigs with a knife or pries oysters open.

"Master Bardell the pig-butcher, and his foreman Samuel Slark, or, as he was more commonly called, Sam the Sticker."

Hood, Sk. Road, Sudden Death Wks. (1833).

Groom Porter

The court official in charge of gambling tables.

"By and by I met with Mr. Brisband, and having it in my mind this Christmas to go to see the manner of the gaming at the Groome-Porter's I did tell Brisband of it, and he did lead me thither: where, after staying an hour, they begun to play at about eight at night, where to see how differently one man took his losing from another, one cursing and swearing, and another only muttering and grumbling to himself, a third without any apparent discontent at all; to see how the dice will run good luck in one hand for half an hour together, and another have no good luck at all;... and lastly, to see the formality of the groome-porter, who is their judge of all disputes in play and all quarrels that may arise therein, and how his under-officers are there to observe true play at each table, and to give new dice, is a consideration I never could have thought had been in the world, had I not now seen it."

Samuel Pepys, Diary (January 1, 1668).

Corrodian

Someone who receives a pension of room, board, and other bare necessities upon retiring from the King's service.

"Since he tells us he had married for love, not for money, he and his wife lived as best they might in their 'smale cote', Hoccleve working by day at the office, and when hard pressed writing a poem in hope of reward. His youthful excesses seem to have damaged his health for a time, and for some five years he suffered from a 'wyld infirmyte' and was out of his mind. He recovered, and with sight impaired and mind enfeebled he struggled on until, after thirty-six years' service, in 1424, he was granted 'such sustenance yearly during his life in the Priory of Southwick, Hants, as Nicholas Mokknge, late master of St Lawrence in the Poultry, had'. The king was able to quarter him on the Priory in this manner since, in accordance with medieval practice, he had the right to pension off one of his servants in this way from time to time and the Priory was forced to find suitable accommodation for the corrodian, as he was called, as well as food, amenities and clothing. Unfortunately we do not know the details of Hoccleve's corrody, but in common with many others of the period we may assume that it provided lodging within or close to the precincts of the monastery for Hoccleve and his wife, together with a fixed daily allowance of ale and bread, and a dish of flesh or fish according to the day and season. In addition there were his allowances of wood and candles, yearly robes for himself and his wife and possibly a small grant of money."

Six Medieval Men & Women, "Thomas Hoccleve," H. S. Bennett (1955).

Catgut Spinner

Paradoxically, someone who uses the intestines of sheep, horse, or ass to make strings for musical instruments.

"William Burridge, Catgut-spinner."

London Gazette (1723).

Abbreviator

Someone who abbreviates, abridges, or shortens writing. An editor. An officer in the court of Rome, appointed as assistant to the vice-chancellor for drawing up the pope's briefs, and reducing petitions, when granted, into proper form for being converted into bulls (OED).

"The earliest mention made of abbreviators in the papal court is in one of the extravagantes of John XXII in 1317."

Ephraim Chambers, Cyclopaedia; or, an universal dictionary of arts and sciences (1751).

Bargain-Hunter

Generally, an expert who has more time than money. A scavenger. Someone who picks over the remains of bankrupt enterprises, hoping to find something of value—for next to nothing.

“Indeed, one of the liveliest spots downtown in 1934 was a place called the ‘securities graveyard’—a room on Vesey Street where the auctioneering firm of Adrian H. Muller & Son regularly conducted public sales of huge blocks of worthless stock in bankrupt companies. A band of seedy bargain-hunters—the flotsam of wild optimism floating on the dark sea of depression—frequented the place, bidding minuscule sums for hundreds of thousands of shares that they hoped might somehow, sometime, be miraculously recalled to life. One of the band, an Englishman named Harold Deighton, always ritually bid one dollar for every lot offered, a hundred shares of this ruined company, a thousand shares of that. Sometimes his was the winning bid; but he never got rich."

John Brooks, Once in Golconda (1970).

Distiller

Someone who distills hard liquor.

“All through the years of Prohibition, the favorite bootleg drink in the New Jersey hills where he had his country estate was ‘Jersey Lightning,’ a harsh but authoritative applejack that had been distilled locally for generations before Prohibition and, of course, had continued to be produced massively though inconspicuously in those well-wooded hills and valleys—then still remarkably remote and unpopulated—without the blessing of law. Incredibly (or so we can say in hindsight), this urbane and sophisticated man came to believe that after repeal Jersey Lightning would capture the fancy of the whole country, and become a standard national drink like Scotch or bourbon; and to make it a still more attractive investment prospect, the stuff had the great commercial advantage of requiring very little aging to be potable, or as potable as it would ever be.”

John Brooks, Once in Golconda (1970).