subs. (common).—Anything especially loud: e.g., (1) = a broken-winded horse (GROSE); (2) a pushing newsvendor; (3) a stump-orator. Hence ROAR = (1) to breathe hard: of horses; (2) to RANT (q.v.); ROARING = the disease in horses causing broken wind.
1752. JOHNSON, Rambler, No. 144. The ROARER … has no other qualifications for a champion of controversy than a hardened front and a strong voice.
1837. R. B. PEAKE, A Quarter to Nine, i. His horse … is neither a crib biter nor a ROARER.
d. 1841. T. E. HOOK, The Man of Many Friends. His stalls at Melton inhabited by slugs and ROARERS.
1841. THACKERAY, Sketches, ‘A Night’s Pleasure.’ Cox’s most roomy fly … in which he insists on putting the ROARING gray horse.
1847. ROBB, Streaks of Squatter Life, 64. Ben was an old Mississip’ ROARER.
1850. H. B. STOWE, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, viii. Tom’s a ROARER when there’s any thumping or fighting to be done.
1865. Evening Citizen, 7 Aug. One of a class of men known as ROARERS went round with a few evening papers which he announced to be “extraordinary editions.”
1872. Figaro, 30 Nov. Greeley’s too great a ROARER, and depended too much on the stump.
1872. G. ELIOT, Middlemarch, xxiii. The horse was a penny trumpet to that ROARER of yours.
1883. Daily Telegraph, 5 Jan., 2, 6. Prosecutor, after paying for the mare, discovered her to be a ROARER.
