subs. (nautical).—1. A boarding-house keeper; a runner; a crimp; anyone living by the plunder of seamen. Fr. une vermine.
1838. GLASCOCK, LAND SHARKS and Sea Gulls [Title].
1857. C. KINGSLEY, Two Years Ago, ch. iv. Can’t trust these LANDSHARKS. They’ll plunder even the rings off a corpse’s fingers.
1888. Notes and Queries, 7 S. v. 4 Feb., p. 83. Honest Jack, may he ever be kept from LAND-SHARKS. [An old Toast.]
2. (common).—A usurer.
3. (common).—A landgrabber; one who seizes land by craft or force.
c. 1824. The American, VIII. 68. There will be evasion of our laws by native and foreign LAND-SHARKS.
4. (common).—A customhouse officer.
1815. SCOTT, Guy Mannering, xxxiv. ‘Lieutenant Brown gave him to his cousin that’s in the Middleburgh house of Vanbeest and Vanbruggen, and told him some goose’s gazette about his being taken in a skirmish with the LAND-SHARKS.’
