Also 8 crouper, croupee, crowpee. [a. Fr. croupier, orig. one who rides behind on the croup; hence, one who goes halves with a player at cards or dice and stands behind him to assist him, also he who stands behind the banker to assist at the game of basset, and now at a gaming table as in sense 2.]
† 1. A second standing behind a gamester to back him up and help him. Obs.
1707. Wycherley, Lett., 11 Nov., in Pope’s Letters. Since I have such a Croupier or Second to stand by me as Mr. Pope.
2. He who rakes in the money at a gaming-table.
1731. Daily Jrnl., 9 Jan. (in D’Israeli Cur. Lit., Gaming), Two Crowpees, who watch the cards, and gather the money for the bank.
1855. Thackeray, Newcomes, I. 301. The gambling tables and the cadaverous croupiers and chinking gold.
1884. May Crommelin, Brown-Eyes, xii. 114. All gone! swept from the green cloth by the croupier’s inexorable rake.
3. One who sits as assistant chairman at the lower end of the table at a public dinner.
1785. Craig, in Lounger, No. 26 § 10. He is no longer Croupier at Lord E.’s, his place there being filled up by Tom Toastwell.
1827. T. Hamilton, Cyril Thornton (1845), 76. The honours of the table were performed by my uncle, by whose orders I acted as croupier. Ibid., 77. The important office of vice-president or croupier.
1849. Thackeray, Pendennis, xvi. Hicks officiated as croupier on the occasion.
