stoater

English

Etymology

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

Noun

stoater (plural stoaters) (informal)

1. (Scotland, Ireland) A beautiful girl or woman.
   • 2009, Dennis Canavan, Let the People Decide: The Autobiography of Dennis Canavan:

     She was a wee stoater with beautiful ringlets down to her shoulders.

   • 2015, Catherine Forde, The Drowning Pond, →ISBN:

     All legs and boobs and bare brown backs. Two stoaters.

   • 2016, BRM Stewart, Digital Investigations, page 90:

     'Mind we saw a couple o' young lassies that time comin' oot and goin' intae the Co-op,' a man said. 'Fuckin' stoaters, man.

2. (Scotland, Ireland, more generally) Anything especially nice.
   • 1984, Glasgow (Scotland). College of Piping, Piping Times - Volume 37, Issues 5-7, page 38:

     Towards the end perhaps there were slight signs of tiring fingers but there is no doubt that, in the words of the cognoscenti, this was a stoater of a performance.

   • 1992, Plays International - Volume 8, page 44:

     There'll be other Christmases. But let's just promise future presents to each other'll be stoaters.

   • 1993, Robert Farrar, State of Independence, →ISBN, page 89:

     Then Eric made a sudden quantum leap and realized that they absolutely must must MUST do a science-fiction version of Noel Coward's enduring and much-loved old stoater, Private Lives.

   • 1997, Flamingo Book of New Scottish Writing, page 5:

     'That's a great dog you've got there,' he said. 'That's a real stoater.

3. (Scotland, Ireland, horse racing) A horse that wins against the odds.
   • 1858, The Irish metropolitan magazine, page 117:

     El Hakim's party won a mere trifle, but stood what poor Captain Scott was wont to term "a stoater" on Merlin, a good but uncertain horse, who had "lost" him in the trial at home.

   • 1860, Sporting Magazine - Volume 36, page 306:

     Owners back their horses for such “stoaters,” in short distance races, where a start is everything, that, in too many cases, woe betide the backs and pockets of the lads if they do not jump off in a twinkling.

   • 1863, Baily's Magazine of Sports & Pastimes - Volume 5, page 96:

     When it was known before starting the sum Lord Portsmouth stood on his filly, there was a perfect furore to back her, as a pony would be ' a perfect stoater ' for him ; and his commission, it was understood, considerably exceeded that sum.

4. (Scotland, Ireland) A severe blow.
   • 1892, François Rabelais, Master Francis Rabelais, page 327:

     With this, Vinet lent him such a swinging stoater with the pitchfork souse between the neck and the collar of his jerkin, that down fell signor on the ground arsyversy, with his spindle shanks wide straggling over his poll.

   • 1976, Alex Hamilton, James Kelman, Tom Leonard, Three Glasgow writers:

     Then you see, and it's so old a trick you'd think we'd have been prepared for it at our age, he draws back his left hand to punch me bang on the conk if I'm following his eyes right, and just as I'm wondering whether to duck or parry, he lets fly with his right and cops Davey's wee cousin a stoater on the left ear.

   • 2007, Christopher Brookmyre, Attack of the Unsinkable Rubber Ducks, →ISBN, page 400:

     Michael smacked him in the face with everything he had, a real stoater

Anagrams

• Rosetta, reostat, rosetta, rotates, toaster