[f. TRACK v.2; cf. Du. trekker.]
1. One who tracks or tows a vessel; a tower; also, a towing-vessel, a tugboat.
1791–1823. Disraeli, Cur. Lit. (1859), II. 143. The severe labour of the trackers, in China, is accompanied with a song.
1817. Chron., in Ann. Reg., 101/1. A Company in Leith have equipped a powerful steam-vessel, or tracker.
1864. Rawlinson, Anc. Mon., II. vii. 174. As there was no room for rowers, trackers were engaged, who dragged the boat along by means of ropes.
1894. Outing (U.S.), XXIV. 363/2. We were awakened by the loud cries of the many trackers, making ready to draw the junks through the swift waters.
2. Organ-building. A strip or rod of wood forming part of the connection between the key and the pallet, and exerting a pulling action: cf. STICKER.
1843. Civil Eng. & Arch. Jrnl., VI. 108/1. The machinery of the organ is so very extensive, that trackers, if placed in one line, would measure more than 5 miles.
1881. W. E. Dickson, Organ-Build., viii. 95. Tracker. A flat riband of pine…. Trackers … are now frequently slender round rods.
1887. W. S. Pratt, in Gladden, Parish Problems, 435. The keys and stops operate an involved net-work of trackers, slides, rollers, levers, springs, and valves.
b. attrib., as tracker-action, -wire, -work.
1904. Athenæum, 12 Nov., 666/1. Our author adds that the *tracker action ‘is dispensed with.’
1910. Times, 16 Dec., 13/5. To have the organ taken down with the substitution of pneumatic action for the old ‘tracker’ action.
1852. Seidel, Organ, 64. Below the back end of the keys … the sling of a *tracker-wire is secured.
1878. E. J. Hopkins, in Grove, Dict. Mus., I. 485/1. If in *tracker-work … the total alteration amounts to no more than one eighth of an inch.
