colloq. Short for COSTERMONGER.

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1851.  Mayhew, Lond. Labour (1861), I. 26/1. The costers never steal from one another.

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1864.  F. W. Robinson, Mattie, I. 135. Bawling costers with barrows.

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1878.  Besant & Rice, Celia’s Arb., i. A street market, consisting almost entirely of costers’ carts and barrows.

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  b.  attrib. and Comb., as coster-boy, -ditty, -girl, -song, etc.

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1851.  Mayhew, Lond. Labour, I. 35/2. The Education of the ‘Coster-Lads.’ Ibid., I. 43/2. The story of one coster-girl’s life may be taken as a type of the many.

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1857.  Kingsley, Two Y. Ago, xxiv. Laying down the law to a group of coster-boys.

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1887.  Times, 3 Dec., 12/3. He and his brethren of the coster fraternity had been driven from pillar to post.

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1892.  Graphic, 21 May. Long before the days of Mr. Chevalier and his excellent songs, there was a coster-ditty, which [etc.]

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