[f. STROKE v.1 and sb.1 + -ER1.]
1. One who strokes; spec. one who cures diseases by stroking.
1632. B. Jonson, Magn. Lady, IV. i. Kee. What you please, Dame Polish, My Ladies Stroaker.
1665. T. A., Excell. Roy. Hand, 1. Divers persons … boasting themselves the seventh Sons, Stroakers, and what not,… promising by their manual Touch, the perfect Cure of those Swellings, commonly called by the name of the Kings Evil.
1666. (title) Rub for Rub; or, an Answer to a Physicians pamphlet, styled the Stroker Stroked.
1668. [Glanvill], Blow at modern Sadducism, 85. The great discourse now at the Coffee-Houses, and every where, is about Mr. G[reatrak], the famous Irish Stroker.
1851. Mrs. Browning, Casa Guidi Wind., I. 666. No man would be The stroker of his mane.
1886. Folk-Lore Jrnl., IV. 361. Erysipelas. This in Donegal is known as The Rose; it … can be cured by a Stroker. Ibid. The women’s friends brought in a ‘stroker,’ who rubbed the nurse with bog-moss [etc.].
b. Stroker-in in Printing: see quot. 1888.
1888. Jacobi, Printers’ Vocab., 134. Stroker-in, the layer-on who strokes in the sheets one by one to be printed.
1902. Daily Chron., 18 Aug., 9/7. Strokers-in (Smart) wanted for printing machine.
2. An implement used for some operation likened to stroking (see quots.).
1884. McLaren, Spinning (ed. 2), 161. As it revolves it is met by the stroker…, a wheel with sharp teeth projecting from it…. This wheel revolves from left to right, and is used to stroke the wool which projects from the little circle, so as to turn the ends forwards.
1888. Jacobi, Printers’ Vocab., 134. Stroker, a small implement, generally made of wood and tipped with metal, for ‘stroking in,’ or laying on sheets in a printing machine.
3. [f. STROKE sb.1] One who makes strokes in Polo.
1895. Outing, XXVI. 389/1. The Iowa Clubs are now playing the regulation American game and they bring to it a formidable set of fearless riders and brilliant strokers.
