Also 6 surmowser, -mysar, 7 Anglo-Ir. -misher. [f. as prec. + -ER1.] One who surmises.
† 1. One who makes allegations or charges (esp. ill-founded or malicious) against some one; a (false) accuser. Obs.
c. 1515. Cock Lorell’s B. (Percy Soc.), 11. Surmowsers, yll thynkers, and make brasers.
1542. Udall, Erasm. Apoph., 248. He made & autorised suche surmisers & piekers of quereles to bee his deputies.
1588–9. Reg. Privy Council Scot., IV. 358. Surmysaris and forgearis of leyis.
1619. in Fortescue Papers (Camden), 78. The burden would lye upon them as upon partiall surmisers and promoters.
a. 1660. Contemp. Hist. Irel. (Ir. Archæol. Soc.), I. 142. Not well understandinge the fetch and groundes of the surmishers.
2. One who makes a surmise or conjecture (esp. ill-founded); spec. (with qualifying word, as evil) one who suspects evil of another.
1591. Greene, Maiden’s Dr., Wks. (Grosart), XIV. 313. The brainsicke and illiterate surmisers, That like to Saints would holy be in lookes.
1632. Lithgow, Trav., VIII. 339. Let not surmisers thinke, ambition led My second toyles, more flash-flowne praise to wed.
1678. Lively Oracles, ii. § 39. I should first desire these surmisers to point out the time when, and the persons who began this design.
1710. Palmer, Proverbs, 39. Evil Surmisers are a People who above all shou’d be sure to look to themselves; For he that’s forward to think amiss of Others, courts all the World to pass censure on Himself.
1843. Newman, Lett. (1891), II. 423. Tom may suspect it and Copeland, so may Church and Marriott. Indeed, I cannot name the limit of surmisers.
1883. G. Macdonald, Castle Warlock, III. iii. 49. There is something here that wants looking into—if not by an old surmiser, yet by the young women themselves!
