Wearer

[f. WEAR v.¹ + -ER¹.]

  1.  One who wears or carries on his person (a garment, ornament, etc.). Also transf. and fig.

1402.  Pol. Poems (Rolls), II. 69. But if my cloth be over presciouse, Jakke, blame the werer.

c. 1449.  Pecock, Repr., I. xvi. 88. Werers of piliouns.

c. 1460.  Towneley Myst., xxviii. 333. Mi gyrdill gay and purs of sylk … whils I am werere of swylke, the longere mercy may I call.

1495.  Act, 11 Hen. VII., c. 27. To the great damage losse and disceite of the Kingis true subgettis biers and werers of such fustian.

1596.  Shaks., Merch. V., I. ix. 43. O … that cleare honour Were purchast by the merrit of the wearer. Ibid. (1606), Ant. & Cl., II. ii. 7. By Iupiter, Were I the wearer of Anthonio’s Beard, I would not shaue’t to day.

a. 1633.  G. Herbert, Outlandish Prov. (1640), 491. The wearer knowes, where the shoe wrings.

1667.  Milton, P. L., III. 490. Then might ye see Cowles, Hoods and Habits with thir wearers tost And flutterd into Raggs.

1725.  Pope, Odyss., VIII. 440. This sword … Whose ivory sheath inwrought with curious pride, Adds graceful terror to the wearer’s side.

1815.  W. H. Ireland, Scribbleomania, 104. Half of the wearers of buskin and sock.

1849.  C. Brontë, Shirley, vi. Her style of dress announced taste in the wearer.

1860.  Trollope, Castle Richmond, xiii. There are great red swollen noses, very disagreeable both to the wearer and his acquaintances.

1869.  Tozer, Highl. Turkey, II. 264. Caps, cloaks, and rings, which render the wearer invisible.

1878.  J. Davidson, Inverurie, i. 14. What wearers of flesh and blood dwelt then in the sheltered dell?

  b.  said of a lower animal.

1876.  E. Parfitt, in Rep. & Trans. Devonsh. Assoc., VIII. 247. This brilliancy of colouring [of some birds] would seem … to compensate the wearers for the melodious voice … of their more sober-painted relatives.

  2.  That which wears away, consumes or diminishes by attrition.

1773.  Johnson (ed. 4). (But his example belongs to sense 1.) Hence in later Dicts.