1. A person who stuffs or fills; one whose trade it is to stuff (e.g.) dead animals or cushions.
1611. Cotgr., Embourreur, a stuffer, bumbaster, or puffer vp of things with flockes, haire, &c.
1694. Motteux, Rabelais, V. Prognost. v. 236. Stuffers and Bumbasters of Pack-saddles.
1862. Jukes, Stud. Man. Geol. (ed. 2), 411, note. To speak of scientific men as ‘mere beetle-hunters and bird-stuffers.’
1893. W. H. Hudson, Idle Days Patagonia, xii. 185. In museums … the stuffer’s work is endurable because useful.
1905. Daily Chron., 16 March, 8/7. Upholsterer.—Good stuffer wants Job.
2. A machine or implement used for stuffing.
1875. Knight, Dict. Mech., Stuffer, a machine for packing or filling; as, 1. A machine for stuffing horse-collars.
1883. R. Haldane, Workshop Rec., Ser. II. 445/2. [The tomatoes] are fed by the ‘stuffer,’ a cylinder worked by a treadle, into the cans.
1909. Teachers’ Assembly Herald, 13 April, 19/1. Other tools [for bird-stuffing] … long stuffers, bone-cutters.
