Obs. exc. arch. Forms: 4–7 faytor, -tour(e, -towre, 6 fayter, feytour, 4– faitour. [a. AF. faitour, OF. faitor doer, maker:—L. factōr-em: see FACTOR. The special sense of ‘impostor’ seems to be peculiarly AF. and Eng.; cf. OF. faiture sorcery, spell.]
1. An impostor, cheat; esp. a vagrant who shams illness or pretends to tell fortunes.
App. already obsolescent in 1568, as Grafton Chron., II. 598 glosses it ‘as much to say as loyterer, vagabond, or begger.’ Sir W. Scott often uses it arch.
a. 1340. Hampole, Psalter, xxx. 16. Þai ere all faitors & ypocrites & iogulors þat desayues men.
[1383. Act 7 Rich. II., c. 5. Governours des villes & lieux ou tielx faitours & vagerantz vendront.]
c. 1430. Life of St. Kath. (1884), 23. Put me in duresse as þouȝ I were a faytour.
1496. Dives & Paup. (W. de W.), I. xxx. 69. These faytours that ben called sothe sayers & astronomers somtyme tell thynges preuy & doo come ayen thynges that ben stolen or loste.
1529. More, A Dialoge of Comfort against Tribulacion, II. Wks. 1209/2. Nor to beleue euery faytor that I mete in the strete, that will saye hymselfe that he is verye sycke.
1579. Spenser, Sheph. Cal., May, 39. Those faytours [gloss. vagabonds] little regarden their charge.
1624. Bp. Mountagu, Gagg, 104. As faitors use, you play fast and loose.
1813. Scott, Trierm., II. xi. Tyrant proud, or faitour strong. Ibid. (1828), F. M. Perth, viii. Yonder stands the faitour, rejoicing at the mischief he has done.
b. nonce-use. The disease of being a ‘faitour.’
c. 1508. Colyn Blowbol’s Testament, 25, in Hazl., E. P. P., I. 93.
| I trow he was infecte certeyn | |
| With the faitour, or the fever lordeyn. |
† 2. Comb. Faitour’s grass: Spurge, the acrid juice of which was used in malingering.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 146. Faytowrys gresse, or tytymal.
1534. Fitzherbert, Husbandry (E.D.S.), lix. A Grasse that is called feitergrasse [ed. 1598. fettergrass].
