Also caster. [A variant of CASTER, f. CAST v. (in sense 1 ‘to throw,’ and 54 ‘to turn or veer’) + -ER. The spelling in -or prob. arose primarily from confusion, and from missing the actual derivation; but it is now predominant, though one might write pepper-caster.]
1. A small vessel with a perforated top, from which to cast or sprinkle pepper, sugar, or the like, in the form of powder; extended to other vessels used to contain condiments at table, as in ‘a set of castors,’ i.e., the castors and cruets usual in a cruet-stand.
1676. Lond. Gaz., No. 1079/4. Stole … Six Salts. A Sugar Castar. A Pepper Caster. A Mustard Pot. Ibid. (1681), No. 1591/4. One Sett of Casters.
1801. Jekyll, Tears of Cruets, 9. The Sugar-castor Wilberforce supplied.
1809. R. Langford, Introd. Trade, 84. A Silver Set of Castors.
1836. Marryat, Midsh. Easy, ix. Put before our hero a tin breadbasket … and the pepper-castor.
1861. Dickens, in All Y. Round, IV. 461. The table-cloth and spoons and castors.
2. A small solid wheel and swivel attached to the foot of each leg of a piece of furniture, so that it may be turned in any direction without lifting.
1748. Mrs. Montagu, in Doran, Lady of last Cent. (1873), Like a slate-bed running on castors.
1800. Sir W. Herschel, in Phil. Trans., XC. 491. An arrangement of twelve bricks, placed on a stand, with casters.
1833. Brewster, Nat. Magic, xi. 269. The machine runs on casters.
1872. Black, Adv. Phaeton, II. xxv. 196. You can’t have castors on old oak chairs.
1873. J. Richards, Wood-working Factories, 42. Trucks with casters.
Hence Castorless a., and comb. castor-maker, etc.
1690. Lond. Gaz., No. 2539/4. Charles Mansell, a Caster-maker.
1883. J. Payn, Thicker than Water, II. xx. 29. Chairs rickety and castorless.
