Now arch. Also 6 Sc. veolar, 6, 9 violar, 7 violler. [ad. OF. violeur (AF. violour): see VIOL sb.1 and -ER1.] A player of the viol, in early use esp. one attached to the household of the king, a noble, etc.; a fiddler.
Chiefly in Sc. use, and frequent in Scottish records and accounts of the 16th and 17th centuries.
1551. Acc. Ld. High Treas. Scot., X. 32. To the saidis violaris to by thame leveray. Ibid. (1551–2), 67. Be the lordis compositouris speciale command to my lord governouris veolaris.
1587. Fleming, Contn. Holinshed, III. 1338/2. An other statelie pageant … made by an other companie of the rhetoricians, called painters or violers.
1617. in 3rd Rep. Hist. MSS. Comm., 413/1. His Maiesties violeris that accompaneit the saidis knychtis to this burgh.
1678. Sir G. Mackenzie, Crim. Laws Scot., II. iv. § 1 (1699), 185. James Johnstoun Violer, arraigned before the Magistrats of Edinburgh.
a. 1722. Sir J. Lauder, Decisions (1759), I. 364. A Violer … was serenading in the night-time with his fiddle.
1824. Scott, Redgauntlet, let. xii. They have brought another violer upon my walk! Ibid. (1825), Betrothed, xxx. I had forgot … the distance between an Armorican violer and a high Norman baron.
1843. G. P. R. James, Forest Days, iv. Come, Master Violer, let us bear the notes of the catgut.
