1. a. One who enters into an engagement or agreement; † a surety, guarantor. b. One who engages in an enterprise or occupation. c. One who engages the service of another; an employer.
1653. Waterhouse, Apol. Learn., 125 (L.). Rash motions have lost noble enterprises and their engagers.
1691. Wood, Ath. Oxon., II. 293. That they [the Italian Opera] might be performed with all decency,… and several sufficient Citizens were engagers.
1865. Reader, No. 143. 342/2. Such pastimes … the engager in them.
† 2. spec. One of those who signed or approved of the ‘Engagement’ of 1647: see ENGAGEMENT 2. Obs. exc. Hist.
1650. Donne, Junr., in Donne’s Lett. (1651), Ded. What of them that were both Covenanters and Engagers too.
1650. Ld. Cassilis, in Nicholas Papers (1886), 188. The confluence of Malignants and Engagers about him [Chas. II.] in the Army.
1761–2. Hume, Hist. Eng. (1806), IV. lx. 521. An army which admitted any engagers or malignants among them.
