Also 5 letere, 8 Sc. latter. [f. LET v.1 + -ER1.] One who lets, in senses of the vb.; esp. one who allows another the use of (apartments, a horse, house, etc.) for hire.
1552. Huloet, Letter of house or lande, cœnacularius.
1671. Crowne, Juliana, I. Dram. Wks. 1873, I. 28. By his tone a kind of letter of lodgings.
1723. Lond. Gaz., No. 6175/6. Thomas Jenkins,… Letter of Horses.
1851. Mayhew, Lond. Labour (1861), II. 230. The letters of rooms are the most exacting in places crowded with the poor.
1885. Law Reports 14 Q. Bench Div. 892. The relation … between hirers and letters of private carriages.
1893. Field, 10 June, 832/1. Builders and letters of boats might object.
b. In Comb., as agent-noun corresponding to various phrasal combinations of the vb., as † letter-blood, letter-loose, letter-out; letter-go, one who ‘lets go’; in Sc. use (letter-gae) a jocular synonym for ‘precentor,’ after A. Ramsay (quot. 1715).
c. 1400. Lanfranc’s Cirurg., 299. A man þat schal be letere blood schal be ȝong.
1611. Markham, Country Content., I. vii. (1615), 104. He which was chosen Fewterer or letter loose of the Grey-hounds.
1616. B. Jonson, Horace’s Art Poetry, 234. A careless letter-go Of money.
1671. H. M., trans. Erasm. Colloq., 267. The letter out of the Horses at first was silent.
1715. Ramsay, Christ’s Kirk Gr., II. xvi. The latter gae of haly rhime, Sat up at the boord-head.
c. 1750. Aston, Suppl. to Cibber, 8. She [Mrs. Bracegirdle] was the Daughter of a … Letter-out of Coaches.
1815. Scott, Guy M., xi. There was no sae money hairs on the warlock’s face as there’s on Letter-Gae’s ain at this moment.
1847. Whistle-Binkie (Scot. Songs), Ser. V. (1890), II. 169. The lettergae trying new tunes.
