Now rare. Also 6 vycytar. [f. VISIT v. + -ER.]
1. = VISITOR 2 a and 2 b.
1382. Wyclif, 2 Macc. iii. 39. He that in heuens hath dwellyng, is visiter and helper of that place.
1608. Willet, Hexapla Exod., 822. He is also a visiter and punisher of sinne vpon the wicked.
2. = VISITOR 1.
1612. Brerewood, Lang. & Relig., 185. These Jacobites … be esteemed to make about 160000 families, or rather 50000, as Leonard the bishop of Sidon, the popes visiter in those parts hath recorded.
1691. Baxter, Nat. Ch., v. 21. The Scots had at first a General visiter, that was really a General Bishop.
1830. De Quincey, Bentley, Wks. 1863, VI. 75. Her Majesty was the true visiter of Trinity College.
3. = VISITOR 3.
1592. Greene, Conny Catch., III. 30. Country Gentlemen haue many visiters both with neere dwelling neighbours, and freends that iourney from farre.
1638. Junius, Paint. Ancients, 13. We doe moreover shorten our own time, fooling the greatest part of our best houres away among a company of pratling visiters.
1668. Lady Chaworth, in 12th Rep. Hist. MSS. Comm., App. V. 10. She yesterday … kept her bed yet admitted visiters in the afternoone.
1727. Swift, What passed in Lond., Wks. 1755, III. I. 184. It was observed too, that he had few visiters that day.
1766. Goldsm., Vic. W., v. Tell me, Sophy, my dear, what do you think of our new visiter?
1773. Mrs. Chapone, Improv. Mind (1774), II. 44. The empty compliments of a visiter.
1796–7. Jane Austen, Pride & Prej., xi. (1813), 225. On the very morning after their own arrival at Lambton these visiters came.
1836–7. Dickens, Sk. Boz, Scenes, xxv. A squalid-looking woman [in Newgate prison] … was communicating some instructions to her visiter—her daughter evidently.
fig. 1799. Sickelmore, Agnes & Leonora, I. 90. The sudden and unwelcome intrusion of his old visiter, the gout, obliged him to alter his determination.
transf. 1756. (title) The Universal Visiter and Memorialist.
4. = VISITOR 4 and 4 b.
1843. Yarrell, Brit. Birds, III. 386. The Terns … are summer visiters to this country.
1851. Catal. Gt. Exhib., III. 729. Immense mirrors … occupy a prominent position, which must render them appreciable to every visiter.
1883. Encycl. Brit., XV. 671/2. The chief object of every Meccan … being to pillage the visiter in every possible way.
