Weeper

[f. WEEP v. + -ER¹.]

  1.  One who weeps or sheds tears, esp. one who is constantly weeping; also one who has tears at command.

c. 1380.  Antecrist, in Todd, Three Treat. Wyclif (1851), 142. Crist chese to him wepers; & þei chesen to hem myrye syngers.

1382.  Wyclif, Judg. ii. 5. The name of that place [Bochim] is clepid, of wepers, or of terys. [Similarly in 1611 marg.]

a. 1400.  Prymer (1891), 46. Seynte marie … do fauour to weperes.

1597.  Shaks., Lover’s Compl., 124. To make the weeper laugh, the laugher weepe.

1646.  Crashaw, Steps to Temple, 1. The Weeper.

1693.  Dryden, Juvenal, X. 45. Laughter is easie; but the Wonder lies, What stores of Brine supply’d the Weepers Eyes.

1735.  Craig, trans. Veda’s Past., i. (1736), 167. Thus, while he sigh’d and dropt a tender Tear, The Hiefers … Nor Crystal Brooks, nor sprouting Grass regard, So much they in the Weeper’s Sorrow shar’d.

1825.  T. Hook, Sayings, Ser. II. Passion & Princ., xi. III. 230. My first wife was a weeper, Ma’am; and I did hope to have escaped a second. However, it seems you are come of a crying family.

1842.  C. Whitehead, R. Savage, xii. Had I been at any time of my life a weeper and wailer.

1874.  L. Stephen, Hours in Libr. (1892), II. vii. 212. Cowper’s tears … never … suggest that the weeper is proud of his excessive tenderness.

  b.  spec. A hired mourner at a death-bed or funeral.

1412–20.  Lydg., Troy Bk., IV. 3062. It neded hem no wepers for to here,—Þei hadde I-nowe of her owne stoor.

c. 1485.  Digby Myst., III. 835. With wepers to þe erth yow hym bryng.

1634.  W. Tirwhyt, trans. Balzac’s Lett., I. 386. At funerals in Paris, weepers are usually hired for money.

1714.  Swift, Poems, In Sickness, 23. Ye formal Weepers for the Sick.

1824.  Morier, Adv. Hajji Baba, xxv. Leilah, who is a professed weeper at burials.

1895.  Petrie, Egypt. Tales, Ser. I. 115. The weepers crouching at the door of thy tomb shall cry aloud the prayers for offerings.

  c.  One of a number of little images in niches on a funeral monument, representing mourners.

1656.  Dugdale, Antiq. Warw., 354. xiv Images embossed, of Lords and Ladyes in divers vestures, called Weepers, to stand in housings made about the Tombe.

1790.  Pennant, Lond., 64. The sides [of the tombs] are … embellished … with figures of mourners, pleureurs, or weepers, frequently in monastic habits.

1864.  Boutell, Her. Hist. & Pop., xxiii. (ed. 3), 388. Eight compartments, each of them having a canopied effigy or ‘weeper.’

1912.  J. S. M. Ward, Brasses, 85. A magnificent canopy with figures either of saints or of ‘weepers’ in niches.

  d.  Ch. Hist. One of the lowest class of penitents (προσκλαίοντες, flentes) in the early Eastern Church.

1841.  Gentl. Mag., Aug., 152/2. That abject class of penitents, mentioned in ancient ecclesiastical canons as mourners, kneelers, and weepers,… who, covered with sackcloth and ashes, were enjoined to perform penance in the open air.

1885.  Encycl. Brit., XVIII. 486/1.

  2.  The Capuchin monkey (Cebus capucinus) of South America. Also weeper sai, capuchin, monkey. Cf. F. singe pleureur and BEWAILER 2.

1781.  Smellie, Buffon’s Nat. Hist. (1791), VIII. 174. The sai, which some travellers have called the weeper, is somewhat larger than the sajou.

1781.  Pennant, Hist. Quad., I. 204. Weeper monkey.

1821.  Helen M. Williams, trans. Humboldt’s Trav., V. 532. Those bearded monkeys called capuchins, which must not be confounded with the weeper or sai.

1841.  Penny Cycl., XX. 417/1. One of the most common species is the Weeper (Cebus Apella).

1894.  H. O. Forbes, Handbk. Primates, I. 216. When sleeping the Weeper Çai curls itself up, covering its face with its arms and tail.

  3.  A conventional badge of mourning. Usually pl. a. A strip of white linen or muslin formerly worn on the cuff of a man’s sleeve. Cf. F. pleureuse.

1724.  Lond. Gaz., No. 6255/2. All … being enjoyned to appear … in long black Clouks, Cambrick Bands, Chamoy Shooes, Weepers, &c.

1746.  H. Walpole, Lett. to Mann, 1 Aug. I … was assisted by the sight of the Marquis of Lothian in weepers for his son who fell at Culloden.

1760–2.  Goldsm., Cit. W., xcvi. Our merry mourners clap bits of muslin on their sleeves, and these are called weepers.

1827.  Hood, True Story, 115. There comes some unexpected stroke And hangs a weeper on the cuff.

1892.  D. Fraser, Autob., ii. 4. Our cuffs were covered with white linen ‘weepers.’

  b.  A broad white cuff worn by widows.

1755.  in W. Macgill, Old Ross-sh. (1909), 148. Making 6 shirts … 6 suit double mobs—6 lawn hoods—6 pair weepers.

1786.  Burns, On a Scotch Bard, 25. Auld, cantie Kyle may weepers wear, An’ stain them wi’ the saut, saut tear.

1811.  Sporting Mag., XXXVIII. 47. With weepers she has tipped her sleeve The while she’s laughing in it.

1843.  Thackeray, Bluebeard’s Ghost, in Fraser’s Mag., Oct., 413/1. She [the widow] had her beautiful hair confined in crimped caps, and her weepers came over her elbows.

1889.  ‘J. S. Winter,’ Mrs. Bob, xix. Mrs. Antrobus … wore very deep and very wide weepers.

  c.  A long black hat-band formerly worn by men.

1832.  Standish, Maid of Jaen, 40.

1834.  Marryat, P. Simple, xli. My father … tore off the crape weepers, and then threw them on the floor as he walked away.

1898.  Besant, Orange Girl, I. vi. The undertaker … was … tying the weepers on the hats.

  d.  The long black crape veil of a widow.

1860.  Geo. Eliot, Mill on Fl., I. xii. He might cherish the mean project of heightening her grief at his death by leaving her poorly off, in which case she was firmly resolved that she would have scarcely any weeper on her bonnet. Ibid. (1872), Middlem., lxxx. If anybody was to marry me, flattering himself as I should wear those hijeous weepers … for him.

  e.  transf. A streamer of moss hanging from a tree.

1857.  B. Taylor, Northern Trav., xiv. (1858), 144. The firs were hung with weepers of black-green moss.

  4.  Usually pl. Long flowing side-whiskers as worn by ‘Lord Dundreary’ (E. A. Sothern) in the play ‘Our American Cousin.’ So Dundreary (or Piccadilly) weepers.

1894.  Du Maurier, Trilby, I. (1912), 4. He wore an immense pair of drooping auburn whiskers, of the kind that used to be called Piccadilly weepers.

1903.  Athenæum, 13 June, 760/3. A mid-Victorian Englishman with ‘Dundreary weepers.’

1908.  Sat. Rev., 20 June, 775/2. Sir James Day was … adorned with the ‘weeper’—a form of whisker … at one time a popular forensic compromise between the bare face and the full beard.

  5.  A hole or pipe in a wall for the escape of dripping water. (Cf. weep-hole in WEEP sb. 3.)

1890.  N. Y. Tribune, 2 Feb. (Cent.). The eyes with which it [sc. the aqueduct tunnel] weeps are rightly called weepers, being small rectangular openings in the side walls, through which all the water collected and collecting on the outside of the masonry pours into the inside.

1893.  G. D. Leslie, Lett. Marco, xxxvii. 255. A drain-pipe, or what builders term a weeper…. The weepers in it are to allow the water from the bank behind it to escape.

  Hence Weepered a., furnished with weepers.

1908.  Edith Somerville & ‘Ross,’ Further Exp. Irish R. M., ii. 52. John Cullinane, very dusty, and waving a crushed and weepered hat.