Obs. Also 6 -ar, -oure; 6–7 -er. [Alteration of next after agent-nouns in -ER. -OR.] = next.
1545. Raynalde, Byrth Mankynde, 55. A suppositar tempered with sope, larde, or the yolke of egges.
1547. Boorde, Brev. Health, xlii. 21 b. A naturall egestion, other by course of nature, or els by suppositors, or … other easy purgacions.
1564–78. Bullein, Dial. agst. Pest. (1888), 50. The bodie must haue benefite by Purgation with Clister, or Suppositer.
1667. Dryden & Dk. Newcastle, Sir M. Mar-all, IV. i. Clysters, Suppositers, and a barbarous Pothecary’s Bill.
1689. G. Walker, Siege Derry, 30. A piece of a Bladder in the shape of a Suppositor.
fig. 1607. Middleton, Fam. Love, III. vi. A plague upon him for a Glister! he has given our loves a suppositor with a recumbentibus.
1638. Ford, Fancies, III. i. Evermore fantastical, As being the suppositor to laughter; It hath sav’d charge in physic.
¶ Used in the sense of ‘supporter,’ ‘support’: cf. SUPPOSITUM, SUPPOST.
1628. Ford, Lover’s Mel., I. ii. Mountebanks, empirics, quack-salvers,… are all suppositors to the right worshipful doctor.
1652. Gaule, Magastrom., xi. § 10. 108. May not their twelve Houses of the Zodiack be … called so many Castles in the ayr? what reedish, nay strawy, suppositors doe they stand upon?
