[f. WARP v. + -ER1.]
† 1. One who throws, a thrower. Obs.
a. 1000. Riddles, xxviii. 7 (Gr.). Nu ic eom bindere & swingere, sona weorpere.
[a. 1225: see KNIFE-warper.]
2. One who winds yarn in preparation for weaving, one who lays the warp for the weaver.
1611. Cotgr., Ourdisseur, a warper; a putter of a web of cloth into the loome.
1822. [see CORDING vbl. sb.1 1].
1825. New Monthly Mag., XIV. 259. Your warpers, your windsters, your weavers … no longer flourish and fatten.
1881. J. Bright, in Daily News, 17 Nov., 2/5. The warpers in those days, as far as my recollection serves me … were all women.
1891. Labour Commission, Gloss., Warpers, those in cotton mills who ‘beam the yarn,’ i. e. take the bobbins from the winders, placing them in a machine, and wind up some four or five hundred of the threads, side by side,… upon what is called a warper’s beam…. Warpers, women employed in reeling warp yarns from bobbins on to reels, before they are taken to the dressing machines.
3. A warping-machine.
1875. Knight, Dict. Mech.
4. A local name for the eel. Cf. WRIGGLER.
1901. Shooting Times, 22 June, 21/2. On a certain river where the eel is plentiful, and many rustic anglers go forth to catch him with rod and line…, the name ‘eel’ is seldom or never heard, but instead he is significantly known as a ‘warper.’
