Also Sc. crafter. [f. CROFT sb.1 + -ER1.] In Gael. croitear, from Eng.] One who rents and cultivates a croft or small holding; esp. in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, one of the joint tenants of a divided farm (who often combines the tillage of a small croft with fishing or other vocation).
1799. Marshall, in J. Robertson, Agric. Perth, 353. Every man, whether farmer, crafter, cotter or villager, manufactures and fetches home his own peats.
1811. G. S. Keith, Agric. Surv. Aberd., Prel. Obs. 14. There cannot be … too few large crofters, who hold their grounds of the farmers.
1862. ‘Shirley’ (J. Skelton), Nugæ Crit., i. 34. Flat, dreary, uplying moors, with the thatched cottage of the crofter, and his scanty patch of cultivation.
1880. Macm. Mag., No. 245. 410/2. The crofter with his few acres well cultivated, produces a larger yield per acre than the large farmer.
attrib. 1848. 3rd Rep. Relief of Destit. Highlands, 68. The state and condition of the Crofter population of Sutherland Proper.
Hence Crofterdom nonce-wd.
1873. Blackw. Mag., July, 100/2. One dead level of crofterdom.
