1. One who cards wool, etc.; one who attends to a carding machine.
c. 1450. Voc., in Wr.-Wülcker, 692. Carpetrix, a carder.
1514. Act 6 Hen. VIII., ix. § 1. The Carder and Spinner to deliver … Yarn of the same Wooll.
1613. Shaks., Hen. VIII., I. ii. 33. The Clothiers … haue put off The Spinsters, Carders, Fullers, Weauers.
1725. Lond. Gaz., No. 6380/13. Charles Banton … Spinner and Carder.
1862. Athenæum, 30 Aug., 265. Potters, grinders, carders, hacklers.
b. A species of wild bee, Bombus muscorum; so called from its tearing moss into shreds for the construction of its nest. Cf. CARD v.1 1 b.
1854. H. Miller, Sch. & Schm. (1858), 68. There were the buff-coloured carders, that erected over their honey-jars domes of moss.
1865. J. G. Wood, Homes without H., xxiv. 463–4. Carder Bees … prepare the materials for their nest in a manner similar to that which is employed in carding cotton wool or heckling flax.
2. See quot. Cf. CARD v.1 4.
1812. Gent. Mag., March, 282/2. Persons who call themselves Carders, from the instrument they use (a wool card) to enforce compliance with their demands for the regulation of the price of land [in Ireland].
1833. Mar. Edgeworth, Love & L., II. iii. (D.). Carders and thrashers, and oak-boys, and white boys, and peep o’ day boys.
