A place-hunter.
1810. The crowd of office-hunters, who, like a cloud of locusts, have descended upon the city [Albany, N.Y.] to devour every plant and herb, and every “green thing.”—W. Irving, ‘Life and Letters,’ i. 243 (1862).
1817. I should not like to have my name hackneyed about among the office-seekers and office-givers of Washington.—Id., i. 392, App.
1817. See NOTHINGARIAN.
1828. The intriguing, fawning, and sycophantic office hunter.—Edmund Pendleton in the Richmond Whig, May 21, p. 3/2.
1841. Half of [them] were office-seekers.—Mr. Sevier of Arkansas, U.S. Senate, March 10: Cong. Globe, p. 250.
1844. For one month before the Presidential inauguration, this city was crowded with office-seekers, loafers, and loungers.—Mr. Duncan of Ohio, House of Repr., March 6: id., p. 403, App.
1845. General Spicer was a keen office-hunter, and rode his mare far ahead of ordinary beggars.—W. L. Mackenzie, ‘Lives of Butler and Hoyt,’ p. 75. (Boston).
1861. The army of contract-jobbers and office-seekers … make the Presidency itself almost as much a subject of traffic as was the Roman Empire in the days of Didius Julianus.—Mr. M. R. H. Garnett of Virginia, House of Repr., Jan. 16: Cong. Globe, p. 413/2.
