colloq. [f. SPAR v.2] One who spars or boxes. Also fig.
1814. Sporting Mag., XLIV. 92. The parties were rival sparrers in the North.
1818. Cobbett, Pol. Reg., XXXIII. 2. The ‘Courier’ and … the ‘Morning Chronicle,’ those sparrers in double-padded gloves.
1862. Thackeray, Philip, vii. Cinqbars was a pretty sparrer—but no stamina.
1886. G. B. Shaw, Cashel Byron’s Prof., Prol. iii. 15 He says you’re only a sparrer, and that you’d fall down with fright if you was put into a twenty-four foot ring.
