Forms: 3 beger, beggere, 3–5 biere, 3–6 bier, 4 byȝer, -ar, begger, byggere, 4–5 bigger, bugger(e, byar, 5 byare, 5–7 byer, 6 buier, 6– buyer. [f. BUY v. + -ER1.]

1

  1.  One who buys, a purchaser.

2

c. 1200.  Trin. Coll. Hom., 213. Þe sullere loueð his þing dere … Ðe beger bet litel þar fore.

3

a. 1300.  Cursor M., 14730. Bath best and bier vte he beft.

4

a. 1400.  E. E. Gilds, 359. To don trewleche þe assys to þe sellere and to þe byggere.

5

1480.  Caxton, Descr. Brit., 13. The byars and sellars that ben at london.

6

1577.  Holinshed, Chron., II. 35/1. He came here as a bier, not as a beggar.

7

1855.  Macaulay, Hist. Eng. (1876), III. ix. 223. A market place swarming with buyers and sellers.

8

1872.  Yeats, Growth Comm., 99. The towns of Lombardy were active buyers of Eastern commodities.

9

  b.  spec. One employed by a mercantile house to conduct the purchase of goods.

10

1884.  Manch. Exam., 18 Sept., 5/3. He was a buyer under this firm. Ibid. (1885), 20 May, 4/7. The prisoner represented himself as buyer to Messrs. Huntley and Palmer.

11

  † 2.  = redeemer. Obs.

12

a. 1300.  E. E. Psalter xviii. [xix.] 15. Laverd … mi bier un-to blisse.

13

c. 1380.  Wyclif, Sel. Wks., III. 12. Jesus Crist, bier of mankynde.

14