disguiser

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English

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Etymology

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From disguise +‎ -er.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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disguiser (plural disguisers)

  1. A person or thing that disguises.
    A voice disguiser alters a person’s voice to protect their anonymity.
    Incense can be used as an odour disguiser.
    • c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Measure for Measure”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies [] (First Folio), London: [] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene ii]:
      O, death’s a great disguiser; and you may add to it. Shave the head, and tie the beard; and say it was the desire of the penitent to be so bared before his death
    • 1696, Robert Howard, The Blind Lady Act V, Scene 3, in Poems on Several Occasions, London: Francis Saunders, p. 124,[1]
      [] I should be friends
      With this disguise, could it but hide my crimes:
      But night it self that great disguiser,
      Wants power to conceal the least of crimes
      From any troubled breast []
    • 1899, Robert Grant, “To A Young Man or Woman in Search of the Ideal”, in Search-Light Letters[2], New York: Scribner, Letter II, pp. 29-30:
      If there were no alcohol or cigars, would not those who now use either to excess have recourse to some other form of stimulant or fatigue and pain disguiser instead?
    • 2010 September 16, Garry Wills, “Stealing Newman”, in The New York Review[3]:
      Benedict was once a scholar and now claims to be infallible in matters of faith or morals. But on the clearest facts of history he is a dissembler and disguiser.
  2. (archaic, historical) A person who wears a disguise; an actor in a masque or masquerade; a masker.
    • 1548, Edward Hall, The Union of the Two Noble and Illustre Famelies of Lancastre [and] Yorke (also known as Hall’s Chronicle), London: Richard Grafton, “The triumphaunt reigne of Kyng Henry the VIII,”[4]
      [] out of a caue in the said Rock came .x. knightes, armed at all poyntes, & faughte together a fayre tournay. And when they were seuered & departed the disguysers dissended from the rock & daunced a great space: & sodeynly the rocke moued & receaued the disguysers, & ymediatly closed agayn.
    • 1904, Edward Dowden, chapter 4, in Robert Browning[5], London: J.M. Dent, page 76:
      Browning’s poems of the love of man and woman are seldom a simple lyrical cry, but they are not on this account the less true in their presentment of that curious masquer and disguiser—Love. When love takes possession of a nature which is complex, affluents and tributaries from many and various faculties run into the main stream.
    • 1987, Thomas M. Greene, “Ben Jonson and the Centered Self”, in Harold Bloom, editor, Modern Critical Views: Ben Jonson[6], New York: Chelsea House Publishers, page 100:
      A kind of witty complicity emerges occasionally from Jonson’s treatment of his disguisers, to suggest that he was taken with their arts in spite of himself.