Also 5–6 loder, 6 looder. [f. LOAD v. + -ER1.]
1. a. One who loads (in various senses); a carrier (obs. or dial.); a man who stands on the top of a wagon, a haystack, etc., and arranges the hay or corn which is forked up.
1476. Paston Lett., III. 153. It come home the same daye that I come owte, browght by Herry Berker, loder.
1568. in W. H. Turner, Select. Rec. Oxford, 325. Nether any looder, carye or recarye wth their loode horse or horses … any maner of corne.
1577–87. Holinshed, Chron., III. 1060/2. So were his loders more readie to aggrauate his burthen, than willing to ease him.
1619. Dalton, Country Just., xliv. (1630), 103. [To] punish the offences of … Badgers Loaders Poulters or other ministers for the King’s Majestie.
1641. Best, Farm. Bks. (Surtees), 35. The one of the men is a londer, the other a forker, and the woman to rake after the waine.
a. 1661. Fuller, Worthies, Cornw. (1662), I. 204. The French-man did it out of covetousness, that so two loaders might bring double grists to his Mill.
a. 1722. Lisle, Husb. (1752), 217. It is good husbandry to have two pitchers to one loader in the field.
1848. Thoreau, Maine W. (1894), 58. According to Springer, the company consists of choppers, swampers,—who make roads,—barker and loader, teamster, and cook.
1880. Lumberman’s Gaz., 28 Jan. There are also ‘loaders,’ who assist the teamsters in placing the logs on their sleds.
1880. Bottrell, Trad. Cornw., Ser. III. 158. The ‘loader’ (miller’s boy) having brought the grist to a farmhouse.
b. An attendant whose business it is to load guns for a man who is shooting game.
1869. Pall Mall Gaz., 1 Sept., 2. A quick man, with a good loader at his back, will not unfrequently get at least three barrels into a rise of birds.
1895. G. W. Smalley, Stud. Men, 198. The killing was done not to his own gun, but to his own three guns, as he had two loaders.
c. (a) A loading-machine. (b) See quot. 1872–6.
1872–6. Voyle & Stevenson, Milit. Dict. (ed. 3), Loader, an instrument used with S. B. siege howitzers to steady the shell in the passage down the bore. The fixed iron band which crosses the hollow hemisphere of the loader has a hole in it which embraces the fuze, and which on reaching the bottom of the bore can be easily disengaged.
1875. Knight, Dict. Mech., Loader, a machine attached to a wagon, as a hay-loader or stone-loader.
1884. Knight, Dict. Mech., Suppl.
† 2. App. a dicing term; a doublet. (In quots. fig.) Obs.
1693. Dryden, Juvenal, VI. Argt. (1697), 114. Lust is the main Body of the Tree…. Every Vice is a Loader; but that’s a Ten. Ibid. (1694), Love Triumphant, IV. i. You will find but one bastard charged upon you: you see I was not for laying loaders.
3. A gun that is loaded in a particular way, always with qualification, e.g., BREECH-LOADER, MUZZLE-LOADER, single-loader.
1858. [see BREECH-LOADER].
1868. Rep. to Govt. U.S. Munitions War, 31. When it is required to be used as a single-loader, and a full magazine held in reserve for a greater emergency.
