[f. WRECK v.1 + -ER1.]
1. One who causes shipwreck, esp. for purposes of plunder by showing luring lights or false signals; a person who makes a business of watching for and plundering wrecked vessels; also, one who wrongfully seizes or appropriates wreck washed ashore.
1820. W. Irving, Sketch Bk. (1821), I. 27. The good people … thronged like wreckers to get some part of the noble vessel … driven on shore.
1843. Times, 20 Jan., 3/6. Although the officers of the coast guard keep a sharp look-out, considerable depredation was carried on by the wreckers.
1882. Farrar, Early Chr., xxii. Cornish wreckers went straight from church to light their beacon-fires.
fig. 1865. Thoreau, Cape Cod, vi. 105. Are we not all wreckers contriving that some treasure may be washed up on our beach?
b. One who wrecks or ruins a structure, institution, concern, etc.
1882. C. G. Walpole, Short Hist. Irel., 44. The Defenders especially had begun to turn the tables upon the ‘wreckers,’ and were the terror of the country side.
1889. Gasquet, Hen. VIII. & Eng. Monast., II. 426. Like a swarm of locusts the royal wreckers went forth over the land, and what they found fair and comely they left black with their smelting fires and useless ruins.
fig. 1883. American, VI. 37. Lawyers and agents, who might be described with fairness as ‘wreckers’ and who generally manage to absorb the assets.
1903. Westm. Gaz., 28 Feb., 10/1. As a wrecker of Cabinets Ireland holds a proud position.
c. fig. One who wrecks, or successfully obstructs the passing of a measure, etc.
1892. Pall Mall Gaz., 12 July, 1/2. If … they are not able to reckon more than 8 Parnellite ‘wreckers.’
1901. Scotsman, 20 Nov., 8/4. The wreckers in the Senate claimed for America the right of fortifying the Canal.
2. Stock Exchange. (See first quot.)
1876. ‘E. Pinto’ (Latham Smith), Ye Outside Fools! (1877), 355. Wreckers.—This elegant appellation is bestowed upon those who make a similarly-organized attack as bears upon some stock, rotten or good, and force down the price by large and successive sudden sales.
1884. American, VIII. 84. The clamor of contending inflaters and wreckers at the stock exchange.
