spiriter

English

Etymology

spirit +‎ -er

Noun

spiriter (plural spiriters)

1. One who spirits away another, particularly one who steals children to be sold into forced labour in the New World.

   Hyponyms: abductor, kidnapper

   • 1675, Charles Cotton, Burlesque upon Burlesque: Or, The Scoffer Scoft:

     When Jupiter, in shape of Eagle, Came the young stripling to inveigle, And seizing him like any Sparrow With his Beak holding his Tiara, To make him sure as swift as Hobby, He bare him into Heaven's Lobby; Whilst the poor boy half dead with Fear, Writh'd back to view his Spiriter.

   • 1955, Nancy Faulkner, Pirate Quest‎^[1], Doubleday, page 16:

     Her name was Susan. She had no other, for she was a foundling. His father had told him she'd been kidnaped by spiriters, evil men who seized orphans and shipped them to the Colonies as bond servants.

   • 1983, Frank Martin, Rogues' River, page 122:

     Few people knew what sort of life they were going to, some were cruelly duped and quite a few at the beginning of the 18th century were the victims of 'spiriters'.

   • 1999, Jane Louise Curry, A Stolen Life‎^[2], →ISBN, page 49:

     Tis the spiriters come back! Stop them! Run, bairns, run!

   • 2002, Lee Galda, Bernice E. Cullinan, Cullinan and Galda's Literature and the Child - Volume 1‎^[3], →ISBN, page 216:

     The protagonist, a young Scots girl, is kidnapped by "spiriters" who sell their victims as bond slaves to planters and farmers in America.

   • 2006, Gail Selinger, W. Thomas Smith Jr., The Complete Idiot's Guide to Pirates‎^[4], →ISBN, page 84:

     Originally stealing children as young as 6 years old, spiriters discovered to their disgust those children were too weak to survive the harsh conditions of transit. So they targeted children 8 years or older. One French spiriter claimed to have sold more than 500 children in a year's time.

2. One who is sensitive to spirits; a medium or spiritualist.
   • 1869 September 22, Q, “Philosophical Essays”, in Humbug: A Weekly Illustrated Journal of Satire, page 8:

     The spiriters sit round and wait, and, after some time, the spiriter with the largest amount of faith feels a spirit.

   • 1894, Friedrich Max Müller, The Sacred Books of the East- Volume 41, page 60:

     And on the following day, he goes to the house of the Sûta (court-minstrel and chronicler), and prepares a barley pap for Varuna; for the Sûta is a spiriter (sava), and Varuna is the spiriter of the gods: therefore it is for Varuna.

   • 1933, Great American Short Stories, page 661:

     If you ain't a ghost, then you must be one o' these here second-sighters that can see 'em - spiriters, I guess they call 'em.

Anagrams

• pitirres, stripier