1. One who ‘draws’ or extracts teeth; a dentist. Now contemptuous.
1393. Langl., P. Pl., C. VII. 370. Of portours and of pyke-porses and pylede toþ-drawers.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 498/1. Toothe draware, edentator.
1529. More, Dyaloge, II. Wks. 194/2. Sainct Apoline we make a toth drawer.
1601. Sir W. Cornwallis, Ess., II. xliii. (1631), 199. To heare Tooth-drawers or Rat-catchers sweare themselves the best in the world.
1654. R. Whitlock, Ζωοτομια, 291. Enough to make a Tooth-drawer, or Corn-cutter passe for a generall Physitian.
1833. L. Ritchie, Wand. by Loire, 40. The only rumbustious individual in the whole crowd was an itinerant tooth-drawer.
2. A dentist’s instrument for extracting teeth.
1597. A. M., trans. Guillemeau’s Fr. Chirurg., 27/2. We must gently and easyly crushe the tooth-drawer together.
1694. Acc. Sev. Late Voy., II. (1711), 123. He hath two Claws before,… somewhat like the Phangs of a Tooth-drawer.
So Tooth-drawing, sb. extraction of a tooth or teeth; adj. that extracts teeth.
1610. Healey, St. Aug. Citie of God, 120. The third, sonne to Arsippus,… first inventor of … tooth-drawing.
1764. Foote, Mayor of G., I. You blood-letting, tooth-drawing,… glistering ——.
1779. Warner, in Jesse, Selwyn & Contemp. (1844), IV. 260. The tooth-drawing must have been a curious scene.
1860. Thackeray, Lovel, vi. My bleeding, bolusing, tooth-drawing rival.
