[f. CHOKE v. + -ER.]
1. ‘One that chokes or suffocates another. b. One that puts another to silence. c. Any thing that cannot be answered’ (Johnson).
1552. Huloet, Choker, or who that choketh, Suffocator.
a. 1620. J. Dyke, Sel. Serm. (1640), 87. Worldlinesse is a choaker and a quencher of the Spirit.
a. 1779. Garrick, Lilliput, I. ii. (Jod.). That’s a choker!
1848. Thackeray, Dr. Birch, ad fin. A glass of water was on the table. I took it and drank it to the health of Anny Raby and her husband. It was rather a choker.
1851. Mayhew, Lond. Labour, I. 352/1. She not being in the habit of pledging is a choker for them.
1859. F. Mahoney, Rel. Father Prout, 194. I’ll give that neck of yours a choker!
1873. Slang Dict., Choker or Wind-stopper, a garotter.
1883. Leland, Snooping, vii. 83. I do not think there is any of this in this last story, and that it is either a choker or a chestnut.
2. slang. A large neckerchief that was worn high round the throat. White choker: the white neckerchief worn in evening dress, by waiters, etc., and esp. by clergymen; often used allusively and sometimes put for the wearer.
1848. Thackeray, Bk. Snobs, i. A sham frill, and a white choker. Ibid., xiv. The mother of the Rev. F. Hughes, proud of her son in his white choker.
1849. Dickens, Dav. Copp., v. In … grey coat, speckled choaker [etc.].
1859. Sat. Rev., VII. 122/2. [Clergymen] once more encase themselves in the stiff respectability of a white choker, [etc.].
1864. Reader, 23 Jan., 95. The platform array of stuttering nobodies in white chokers.
3. slang. = CHOKY 2: the lock-up, prison.
1884. Manchester Evening News, 4 Jan., 3/4. He preferred to go to ‘choker’ to letting the devil have his own way.
Hence Chokered ppl. a., attired in a choker.
1865. Look before you Leap, I. 46. A smooth-faced, accurately got-up, white-chokered young exquisite.
1866. Lond. Rev., 7 April, 388/1. A whitebait waiter is admirably chokered.
