[f. STEAM v. and sb. + -ER1.]
1. One who steams; a person employed in some process of steaming.
1832. Min. Evid. Comm. Factories Bill, 27. You say you were taken to be a steamer: are not very stout and healthy youths usually selected for that purpose?—Yes.
1881. Instr. Census Clerks (1885), 64. Woollen Cloth Manuf., Steamer. Ibid., 69. Calico, Steamer.
1902. Brit. Med. Jrnl., 15 Feb., 380/1. Hatting Operatives … Proofers, including ‘stovers’ … and ‘steamers.’
2. An apparatus for steaming (in various technical processes); a vessel in which articles are subjected to the action of steam, as in washing, cookery, etc.
1814. Sporting Mag., XLIII. 275. Stew-pans, hot dressers, steamers, digesters.
1846. Soyer, Cookery, 605. Place them in a vegetable steamer, and steam them well for half an hour.
1846. A. Young, Naut. Dict., 177. Kiln, Stove, or Steamer.
1858. Simmonds, Dict. Trade, Steamer, a spare top fitting on a saucepan, with holes at the bottom, for cooking potatoes by steam.
1895. Arnold & Sons’ Catal. Surg. Instrum., 777. Steamer, Copper, with spirit lamp and tray, for softening poroplastic jackets, etc.
1897. Allbutt’s Syst. Med., II. 551. If bales of dry wools and hairs were placed in steamers—as is done in the melange printing process.
b. Applied to a boiler in respect to its power of generating steam.
1891. Century Dict., s.v., The boiler is an excellent steamer.
† 3. slang. A tobacco-pipe. Obs.
1811. Lex. Balatr., Steamer, a pipe. A swell steamer; a long pipe, such as is used by gentlemen to smoke.
1823. ‘Jon Bee,’ Dict. Turf, s.v., ‘Keep up the steam or steamer,’ to smoke indefatigably.
† 4. Austral. A dish of stewed kangaroo. Obs.
1820. C. Jeffreys, Van Dieman’s Land, 70.
1827. P. Cunningham, Two Yrs. New South Wales (1828), I. 289. The favourite dish being what is called a steamer, composed of steaks and chopped tail, (with a few slices of salt pork,) stewed with a very small quantity of water for a couple of hours in a close vessel.
1861. Whyte-Melville, Good for Nothing, II. xxvi. 7. I rather think I shall astonish you when we camp, and I show you what ‘steamer’ is!
5. A vessel propelled by steam; a steamboat, steamship.
1825. T. Hook, Sayings, Ser. II. Man of Many Fr., II. 46. The Brighton Steamer to Dieppe.
1828. Scott, Lett., 18 July, in Mrs. Hughes, Lett. & Recoll., vii. Though not afraid of a breeze in a good sea-boat I should not relish it much in a steamer, for if any part of the machinery goes wrong [etc.].
1847. Bentinck, in Croker Papers (1884), III. xxv. 143. We had five war steamers lying in the Tagus and Douro.
1890. ‘R. Boldrewood,’ Col. Reformer, xiv. A stately ocean steamer.
1897. Daily News, 23 Sept., 5/3. The word ‘steamer’ still suggests to most people a vessel with a pair of funnels and a pair of paddles.
b. attrib.: steamer-chair, a lounge-chair such as is used on the deck of a steamer.
1839. [Miss Maitland], Lett. fr. Madras (1843), 283. I have a whole steamer-load of things to say, and I scarcely know where to begin.
1886. Mrs. Burnett, Little Ld. Fauntleroy, iv. The people who had been sea-sick had … come on deck to recline in their steamer-chairs and enjoy themselves.
1895. R. W. Chambers, King in Yellow, Street of Our Lady of Fields, ii. 234. He, it was easy to see, had not yet unpacked his steamer-trunk.
6. a. A steam-propelled road-locomotive, traction-engine or the like. rare. b. In recent use, a motor-car driven by steam.
1837. W. B. Adams, Carriages, 202. The steamers on the railroad can carry their own materials, which the steamers on common roads cannot so conveniently do.
1870. Pall Mall Gaz., 9 Aug., 4. The reports on Thomson’s ‘road steamer’ made to the War Department.
1900. Daily News, 14 Nov., 6/3. Trevithick constructed a road steamer that made its appearance upon the Cornish highways on the Christmas Eve of 1801.
1901. Morn. Leader, 18 Dec., 6/4. The War Office has again been testing motor transport vehicles, mostly steamers.
7. a. A fire-engine the pumps of which are worked by steam.
1876. E. M. Shaw, Fire Protection, 63. The proper course would be … to remove the hose to the steamer, and attach the steamer’s suction-pipe to the hydrant.
1886. Manch. Exam., 8 Jan., 6/1. Steamers and manuals from all parts of the metropolis arrived at the fire.
b. A steam thrashing-machine.
1898. Rider Haggard, Farmer’s Yr., Feb. (1899), 104. The steamer began to work at the All Hallows Farm on the little stack of barley.
1900. ‘H. Lawson,’ On Track, 75. He reaped it by hand, had it thrashed by travelling ‘steamer’ (portable steam engine and machine).
8. (transf. from sense 5.) The duck Tachyeres (or Micropterus) cinereus (or brachypterus) of the Falkland Islands; the loggerhead or race-horse. Also steamer duck.
1827. P. P. King, Voy. Adventure & Beagle, I. 35. Here we saw, for the first time, that most remarkable bird the Steamer-duck. Ibid., 36. I am averse to altering names…; but in this case I do think the name of ‘steamer’ much more appropriate and descriptive of the swift paddling motion of these birds, than that of ‘race-horse.’
1845. Darwin, Voy. Nat., ix. (1873), 200. These ducks from their extraordinary manner of paddling and splashing upon the water … are now called steamers.
1895. Lydekker, Roy. Nat. Hist., IV. 357. The steamer-duck (Tachyeres cinereus) of the Falkland Islands and Patagonia.
9. local. (See quot.)
1865. J. T. F. Turner, Slate Quarries, 8. If the stone to be raised be large, a chain with hooks is sent down in lieu of the wagon, and the stone is named a ‘steamer.’
Hence Steamer v., to travel by steamboat; so Steamering vbl. sb. Steamerful, a steamboat-load. Steamerless a., without a steamer or steamers.
1866. R. W. Church, Lett., 21 Sept., in Life (1894), 175. Tuesday we steamered up the lake to Villeneuve.
1883. Carlyle, in Mrs. Carlyle’s Lett., I. 95. This autumn [1838], after lectures,… I steamered to Kirkcaldy.
1886. Froude, Oceana, 316. On certain days he threw open house and grounds to excursion parties from Auckland. A steamerful would come.
1895. Punch, 28 Sept., 148/1. Capital boating and fishing—likewise plenty of steamering.
1900. Truth, 3 May, 1057. A steamerless Thames.
