Orig. (and chiefly) Amer. [f. WRECK sb.1 + -ER1.]
1. A person engaged in salving wrecked or endangered vessels or cargo; a salvager, salvor.
1804. M‘Kinnon, Tour West Indies, ix. 137. Those persons called wreckers, who are licensed by the Governor of the Bahamas, and cruise amongst these islands for the benefit of salvage.
1819. Edwards’ Hist. W. Indies (ed. 5), IV. 225. The business of wreckers … consists in giving assistance to those who are wrecked, or in danger of being so, upon the almost endless rocks and shoals [of the Bahamas].
1851. Rovings in Pacific, I. 173. Our own vessel … had heeled on to a sunken patch in the offing…. It gave us wreckers a tremendous fright.
1875. Talmage, Old Wells, 273. The wreckers shoot a rope out to the suffering men.
2. A ship or vessel employed in salvaging sunk, wrecked or stranded vessels.
1864. Webster.
1868. [see WRECKING vbl. sb.1 2].
1898. Westm. Gaz., 14 July, 5/2. The Wreckers and Admiral Cervera’s Vessels.
