[VINE sb.] One occupied in the pruning, training and cultivation of vines.
1560. Bible (Geneva), Joel i. 11. Houle, o ye vine dressers for the wheat, and for the barly.
1611. Bible, 2 Kings xxv. 12. But the captaine of the guard [Nebuzaradan] left of the poore of the land, to be Vine-dressers, and husbandmen.
a. 1653. Gouge, Comm. Heb. vii. (1655), II. 131. The Apostle exemplifieth the equity of this … by a Vine-dressers partaking of the fruit of it.
1709. Lond. Gaz., 4556/1. Of these there are, Husbandmen and Vinedressers, one thousand eighty three.
1763. Mills, Syst. Pract. Husb., IV. 341. That so the vine dresser may dig all round the vine.
1818. Lady Morgan, Autobiog. (1859), 123. When the vines were all gathered, the vinedressers came in procession under the castle windows.
1883. J. De Mille, Castle in Spain, iv. 19/1. Shepherds, goatherds, and vine-dressers stared lazily up as the train rolled by.
fig. 1770. Burke, Pres. Discont., Wks. 1808, II. 273. I do not mean those branches [of trade] which bear without the hand of the vine-dresser.
