Also 5 lawnderer, 6–7 landerer, 7 laundrer. [f. LAUNDER sb.: see -ER1 3; now regarded as f. LAUNDER v.]
1. One who launders (linen). Obs. exc. U.S.
c. 1475. Cath. Angl. (Add. MS.), 210/2. Lawnderer, candidaria, lotrix.
1550. J. Coke, Eng. & Fr. Heralds, § 101 (1877), 89. Launderers.
1598. Kitchin, Courts Leet (1675), 379. The Woman which is Landerer or Nurse shall be essoined.
1631. Brathwait, Whimzies, Launderer, 56. A launderer may bee as well a male as a female, by course of nature.
1666. Evelyn, Mem. (1857), III. 185. The cook and laundrer comprehended in the number.
1876. Dixon, White Conq., I. xvii. 171. Having their work done better and cheaper by Chang Hi and Hop Lee, Chinese launderers in Jackson Street.
1884. Circular [The makers of an ironing machine shown at the Health Exhibition ask the support of] launderers and laundresses.
1889. Daily News, 8 June, 5/1. A laundress, or washerwoman [in America], is now ‘a lady launderer.’
fig. a. 1680. Butler, Rem. (1759), II. 386. An Anabaptist … is a Landerer of Souls, and tries them, as Men do Witches, by Water.
† 2. One who ‘launders’ gold or plate; a sweater.
1632. D. Lupton, Lond. & Carbon. (1857), 277. Some of the men are cunning Landerers of plate, and get much by washing that plate they handle, and it hath come from some of them … a great deale the lighter.
