Forms: 4 toukere, 5 tokker, (toucher), towkere, 5–6 towker, touker, toker, (6 towcker, toukar, toocker, tooker, tukkar), 6– tucker. [f. TUCK v.1 + -ER1.]
1. One whose occupation is the fulling and dressing of cloth; a fuller; a cloth-finisher. Obs. exc. dial. Perh. originally one who burled or teased the cloth.
Tucker’s earth, fuller’s earth.
[1273. Hundred Rolls, Dorset, Roger le Tukere.
13[?]. Fine Rolls, Nicholas le Tokere.]
1388. Wyclif, 2 Kings xviii. 17. The water cundijt of the hiȝere cisterne,… in the weie of the fullere, [gloss] ethir toukere [1382 the fullers feeld].
c. 1475. Pol. Poems (Rolls), II. 285. A ordynaunce … for spynners, carders, wevers, also, Ffor toukers, dyers, and schermyn.
1496. Somerset Medieval Wills (1901), 344. To my wevers and tokers thorow the towne xij d a pece.
1506. Will of Abadam (Somerset Ho.). Tucker’s schers.
1545. Elyot, Gnafos, a tesyll, whiche toukars do vse.
1603. Holland, Plutarch’s Mor., 1231. [Crœsus] caught one of the nobles,… and within a fullers mill all to beclawed and mangled him with tuckers cards and burling combs.
1610. W. Folkingham, Art of Survey, I. ii. 4. Tuckers or Fullers Earth.
1615. Brathwait, Strappado (1878), 174. Where errant pedlers, mercinarie slaues, Tinkers and Tookers and such idle knaues.
1636. in E. Owen, Catal. MSS. relating to Wales in Brit. Mus. (1908), 724. Ground for the erection of … tentors or tucker’s rackes.
1745. De Foe’s Eng. Tradesman, xx. (1841), I. 193. Cloth-workers, tuckers, and merchants.
1837. Whittock, etc., Bk. Trades (1842), 253. Wool could not be spun without being combed in oil; nor would it take the dye when woven, unless divested of the oil. This is the proper business of the Fuller;… provincially called, the Tucker.
1888. Elworthy, W. Somerset Word-bk., Tucker, one who mills, or fulls and finishes cloth…. Probably the entire finishing of the cloth, from the time it left the weaver, was performed by the tucker at the tucking-mills.
† 2. An instrument for tucking or plucking; pair of tuckers, tweezers. Obs. rare–1.
1658. trans. Porta’s Nat. Magic, IV. x. 133. Tuck away the dry, and withered, and rotten grapes with a pair of tuckers.
3. A piece of lace or the like, worn by women within or around the top of the bodice in the 17–19th c.; a frill of lace worn round the neck. Best bib and tucker: see BIB sb.1 b.
1688. R. Holme, Armoury, III. 17/1. A Pinner or Tucker, is a narrow piece of Cloth … which compasseth the top of a Womans Gown about the Neck part.
1710. Lady Grisell Baillie, Househ. Bk. (1911), 204. For musline for night cloathes, ruffles, tuckers, etc. £3. 4. 0.
1793. J. Williams, Life Ld. Barrymore, 67. The Butcher’s Lady thinks, that living in style, is manifested in putting on her best bib and tucker on holidays.
1847. C. Brontë, Jane Eyre, vii. Some of the girls have two clean tuckers in the week;… the rules limit them to one.
1875. [see BID sb.1 b].
1881. E. F. Poynter, Among the Hills, I. 150. Pulling out her white tucker round her white throat.
4. One who tucks; in quot. in sense 9.
1796. Grose’s Dict. Vulg. T. (ed. 3), s.v. Tucked up, A tucker up to an old bachelor or widower; a supposed mistress.
5. Needlework. One who makes or ‘runs’ tucks; the device in a sewing-machine which does this.
1905. Daily Chron., 11 Aug., 10/7. Machinists…, shirts and blouses; also a few vacancies for tuckers.
6. [f. TUCK sb.1 6 or v.1 10.] The daily supply of food of a gold-digger or station-hand; rations, meals; also, food generally, victuals: = TUCK sb.1 6 b. To earn or make one’s tucker, to earn merely enough to pay for one’s keep. Australian slang.
1858. Morn. Chron., 31 Aug. (Farmer). Diggers, who have great difficulty in making their tucker at digging.
1874. G. Walch, Head over Heels, 73. For want of more nourishing tucker, I believe they’d have eaten him.
1883. A. Forbes, in Contemp. Rev., Oct., 606. A peer’s son who is earning his ‘tucker’ as a station cook in New Zealand.
1898. M. Davitt, Life & Progr. Australia, xl. 275. A pound of a week, including lodgings and ‘tucker.’
attrib. 1890. ‘R. Boldrewood,’ Miner’s Right, iv. Cyrus and Joe will go splitting or fencing … to pay the tucker-bill.
1902. H. Lawson, Children of Bush, 88. There’s some women that can never see a tucker-bag, even if you hold it right under their noses.
1902. Westm. Gaz., 30 July, 2/1. Weird dishes in which every ingredient in the ‘tucker box’ struggles for mastery.
1904. Daily Chron., 21 March, 5/5. It is no time to be mealy-mouthed when capitalists … want slave workers at tucker wages.
