[f. as prec. + -ER1.] One who or that which floors.
1. One who or that which brings down to the floor or ground; esp. a knock-down blow.
1795. Potter, Dict. Cant (ed. 2), Floorers, fellows who throw persons down, after which their companions … rob them in the act of lifting them up.
1819. T. Moore, Tom Crib’s Mem. (ed. 3), 59.
| And, singling him from all her flash adorers, | |
| Shines in his hits, and thunders in his floorers? |
1836–48. B. D. Walsh, Aristoph., Acharnians, II. ii. 33.
| Strike, O strike the precious rascal! | |
| He shall have a floorer dealt him! |
2. Something which floors in a figurative sense (see FLOOR v. 3), e.g., unexpected news of an unpleasant nature, a decisive argument or retort, a question which utterly embarrasses one, a poser. Also in university slang, a question or paper too hard to be mastered.
1837. T. E. Hook, Jack Brag, III. vii. 308. ‘Well,’ said Jack, ‘that ’s a floorer, and no mistake—what ’s to be done?’
1867. J. Hatton, Tallants of Barton, lviii. This case is a floorer to me.
1870. Brewer, Dict. Phrase & Fable, Floorer.… In the University we say, ‘That paper or question was a floorer’; meaning it was too hard to be mastered.
1875. Miss Braddon, Hostages to Fort., xiv. 227. ‘I didn’t know the news would be such a floorer,’ says Lord Earlswood drily, with a supressed savagery. ‘If I had known, I should have been more careful how I told you. I would have gone to that white-washed convent ouside the town and got one of the sisters to break it to you.’
