Also 7 wastecoateer, -coater, wastcoateer, -coatier, westecoateer, 8 wastecateer, 9 waistcoatteer. [f. WAISTCOAT + -EER.]
† 1. A low-class prostitute. Obs. exc. Hist.
a. 1616. Beaum. & Fl., Wit without Money, IV. iv. Luce. Doe you thinke you are here sir amongst your wastcoateers, your base Wenches that scratch at such occasions?
1675. Char. Town-Gallant, 3. Every thing with him is an Incentive to Lust, and every Woman Devil enough to tempt him, Covent-Garden Silk-Gowns, and Wapping Wastcoatiers, are equally his Game.
1822. Scott, Nigel, xvii. ‘I know the face of yonder waistcoateer,’ continued the guide.
2. nonce-use. A person wearing a waistcoat of a specified fashion.
1825. T. L. Beddoes, Lett., 11 Jan. (1894), 49. Here followed a long Brutus & Cassius discourse between a shilling-buttoned waist-coatteer of a porter and myself.
1859. Weekly Dispatch, 6 Feb., 7/1. Mr. Cobden happily christened the white waistcoateers, puppies who are cabbed up from the Clubs, or from Lady Thingummy’s rout, at midnight by whippers in, to swell or make the Ministerial Majority.
