or sojer, sodger, subs. (colloquial).—1. A soldier. [Cf. sawgeoure (miles) Townley Myst. (c. 1401), p. 310].
[?]. Chronicon, Mirab., 109. A SOGER of the armé.
d. 1796. BURNS, The Jolly Beggars, ‘Soldier Laddie,’ iii.
| He ventur’d the soul, and I risked the body, | |
| ’Twas then I prov’d false to my SODGER laddie. |
1864. C. F. BROWNE (‘Artemus Ward’), Works (1870), 257. We certinly don’t lack brave SOJERS—but there’s one thing I wish we did lack, and that is our present Congress.
d. 1868. LOVER, The Bould Soger Boy [Title].
1899. R. WHITEING, No. 5 John Street, xxi. ’Tilda. Won’t it be fine to see the SOJERS on ’orseback? I hope it ’s the reds.
2. (nautical).—See quots.
1835. R. H. DANA, Jr., Two Years Before the Mast, 25. All hands are engaged upon it [reefing], and after the halyards are let go, there is no time to be lost—no SOGERING, or hanging back. Ibid., 117, Note. SOGER (soldier) is the worst term of reproach that can be applied to a sailor. It signifies a skulk, a sherk—one who is always trying to get clear of work, and is out of the way, or hanging back, when duty is to be done. “Marine” is applied more particularly to a man ignorant and clumsy about seaman’s work—a green-horn—a land-lubber. To make a sailor shoulder a handspike, and walk fore and aft the deck, like a sentry, is the most ignominious punishment that could be put on him; inflicted upon an able seaman in a vessel of war, would break his spirit down more than a flogging.
1881. C. D. WARNER, My Winter on the Nile, 248. The two long lines of men attached to the ropes on the left shore. They stretch out ahead of us so far that it needs an opera-glass to discover whether the leaders are pulling or only SOLDIERING.
1883. W. C. RUSSELL, Sailors’ Language, Preface, xii. Many an old prejudice survives in sea-language; as, for instance, the ‘SOGER’ (soldier), which is as strong a term of contempt as one sailor can fling at another, whilst ‘SOGERING’ means to loaf, to skulk; as if in Jack’s opinion loafing and skulking were characteristics of a soldier.
3. (Winchester).—See quot. and PERCHER.
1839. The Music of a Merry Heart, 55. The books went up, and in due time were returned to us after examination, with the most startling faults indicated by a good big cross in the margin, which crosses for some reason, were known as SODGERS.
