subs. (common).—A defaulting debtor; a WELSHER.

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  1598.  FLORIO, A Worlde of Wordes. LEVANTE … A limlifter, a shifter, an uptaker, a pilfrer.

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  1781.  G. PARKER, A View of Society, II. 168. LEVANTERS. These are of the order and number of Black-Legs.

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  1821.  W. T. MONCRIEFF, Tom and Jerry, p. 5. Here, among the pinks in Rotten Row, the lady-birds in the saloon, the angelics at Almack’s, the top-of-the-tree heroes, the legs and LEVANTERS at Tattersall’s, nay, even among the millers at the Fives, it would be taken for nothing less than the index of a complete flat.

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  1826.  HOOD, Whims and Oddities, 1st S. (Backing the Favourite).

        But she wedded in a canter,
And made me a LEVANTER,
  In foreign lands to sigh for the Favourite!

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