1. A boaster. Obs.
1340. Ayenb., 22. Þe yelpere is þe cockou þet ne kan naȝt zinge bote of him-zelue.
2. An animal that yelps or gives a sharp shrill cry; also, a person who ‘yelps,’ etc.
a. A dog that yelps, a whelp. b. The avocet. local. c. A young partridge. d. A redshank. e. A ‘call’ used by sportsmen to imitate the ‘yelp’ of the wild turkey-hen. f. slang. A town-crier. g. slang. A wild beast.
a. 1673, 1825. [implied in 3].
1847. Halliwell, Yelper, a young dog; a whelp.
1850. Dobell, Roman, vi. Poet. Wks. (1875), 90. But let one miscreant yelper howl, and mark How all the pack gives tongue.
1886. H. F. Lester, Under Two Fig Trees, ii. I was strolling … through the establishment [sc. a dog’s home], looking into one cage of yelpers after another.
b. 1770. Pennant, Brit. Zool., IV. 69. [Avosettas] are found in considerable numbers during the breeding season, near Fossdyke Wash, in Lincolnshire, called there Yelpers.
c. 1818. Britton’s Lincolnshire, 725.
c. 1802. W. B. Daniel, Rur. Sports, II. 518. Vos teneri Yelpers, vos grandævique parentes.
d. 1892. D. Jordan, Within an Hour of London T., ix. The ‘cussed’ redshank or pool-snipe was dubbed the red-legged yelper. Ibid., xiii. If wild-fowl possess the virtue of gratitude, they must quack, bark, whistle, shriek, and grunt untold blessings on the redshank’s head, for the yelper is their feathered sentinel.
1884. R. B. Roosevelt, Florida & Game Water-Birds, 196. The yelper has a strong, rapid, and often irregular flight, and a loud cry.
e. 1884. Sport with Gun and Rod, II. 762. We now take our yelper, and give a few sharp yelps; he [sc. a wild turkey] hears the call.
f. 1725. New Cant. Dict., Yelper, a Town-Cryer; also, one subject to complain.
1823. ‘Jon Bee,’ Dict. Turf, 197. Yelper, a town-crier. Also, a discontented cove, who is forward to complain of his woes, and the imaginary evils of life.
g. 1823. Grose’s Dict. Vulgar T., Yelpers, wild beasts.
3. Applied contemptuously to a speaker or writer, whose utterance is compared to a dog’s yelp.
1673. S. Parker, Reproof Reh. Transp., 268. He will never take any notice of such a despicable yelper as you, unless with a Dog-whip.
1703. T. Baker, Tunbridge Walks, III. 31. Now shall I be ask’d, a thousand more Whimsical Cross Questions, than a Bashful Witness, by an Impudent Yelper at the Old-Bayley.
1821. Blackw. Mag., IX. 61. When they reflect on thy strength, and think of their own petty yelpers. Ibid. (1825), XVII. 467. A pretty pack or yelpers they are, to be sure, that the Whigs hound at the Chancellor.
1827. Scott, Diary, 10 Aug., in Lockkart. In the house of commons he [sc. Canning] was the terror of that species of orators called the Yelpers.
1873. J. Greenwood, In Strange Company, 281. The other merciless howlers and yelpers.
