[f. BROOM + MAN.] One who uses a broom; a street-sweeper.
1592. Greene, Upst. Courtier (1871), 27. Then Conscience was not a broom man in Kent Street but a Courtier.
1646. G. Daniel, Poems, 1878, I. 59. Who’s free? Not Broome-men, nor the baser sort, Who dress the Citie, and defile the Court.
a. 1716. South, Serm. (1717), VI. 9. Scarce one, in Five Thousand … knows so much as what Popery means. Only that it is … A Word that sounds bigg and high in the Mouths of Broommen, Scavingers and Watermen, on a 5th or 17th of November.
