[f. WET v.]

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  1.  One who wets; spec. one who damps paper to be used in printing.

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1737.  Chamberlayne, St. Gt. Brit. (ed. 33), II. 93. Wetters of paper for [rolling-press].

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1760.  Court & City Reg., 130. 7 Layers of Paper, and 2 Wetters of ditto.

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1888.  Jacobi, Printers’ Vocab., Wetter, the workman whose duty it is to ‘wet down’ paper preparatory to printing.

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  b.  Wetter-off, in glass-making, a workman who detaches glass by wetting it. (Cf. WET v. 13.)

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1883.  H. J. Powell, Glass-making, 86. If the bottle be large it is handed, whilst still attached to the blowing-iron, to the ‘wetter off,’ who detaches it by applying a moistened tool to the neck.

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1888.  Daily News, 14 Feb., 6/7. The glass is never attached to any part of the machine, and so the ‘wetter-off’ is dispensed with.

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  2.  colloq. A wetting, soaking.

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1885.  Sladen, Poetry of Exiles (ed. 2), I. 28.

          Unheedful of the dew that lies in Autumn on the ‘Roots,’
Until a shiver told him that he’d ‘had a thorough wetter.’

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