Finisher

[f. as prec. + -ER¹.]

  1.  One who or that which finishes (in the different senses of the vb.).

1516.  Tindale, Heb. xii. 2. Jesus the auctor and fynnyssher of oure fayth, which for the ioye that was set before hym, abode the crosse.

1587.  Golding, De Mornay, Ep. Ded. God the verie founder, furtherer and finisher of trueth or rather the very trueth it selfe.

1597.  Hooker, Eccl. Pol., V. xlii. 85. The one a defender of his innocency, the other a finisher of all his troubles.

1667.  Milton, P. L., XII. 375.

1786.  Sir J. Reynolds, Disc., xiii. (1876), 69. If our judgments are to be directed by narrow, vulgar, untaught, or rather ill-taught reason, we must prefer a portrait by Denner, or any other high finisher, to those of Titian or Vandyck; and a landscape of Vanderheyden to those of Titian or Rubens; for they are certainly more exact representations of nature.

1827.  Sporting Mag., XX. 267/1. By way of a finisher, washing or soaking the flax in the rivers kills hundreds of fish.

1875.  Lowell, Spenser, Prose Wks. (1890), IV. 297, note With all his abundance, he was evidently a laborious finisher.

  2.  spec. a. In various trades: The workman, or machine, that performs the final operation in manufacture.

1691.  Southerne, Sir A. Love, III. i. I am poor Courtant your Taylor’s finisher.

1835.  Ure, Philos. Manuf., 169. This finisher carding-engine is furnished with finer teeth than the scribbler.

1869.  T. Leicester, in Eng. Mech., 3 Dec., 282/1. It is then passed on to the finisher or workman.

1875.  Ure’s Dict. Arts, I. 425. The ‘forwarder’ then passes the book on to the ‘finisher,’ whose duty it is to add the required lettering and ornament.

1884.  Standard, 14 April, 3/7. A strike … has commenced among the ‘lasters and finishers’ of the boot trade.

  b.  Finisher of the law: jocularly, the hangman, executioner.

1708.  Motteux, Rabelais, V. Prol. (1737), 57. As often as they will take the Pains to dance at a Rope’s End, providently to save Charges, to the no small Disappointment of the Finisher of the Law.

1734.  Grub St. Jrnl., 2 May, 1/1. I imagine … that in point of order … the finisher of the law ought to draw up the conclusion.

1833.  Fraser’s Mag., VIII. 30. Thistlewood was suspended by the finisher of the law.

1835.  Tait’s Mag., II. 168. It [the newspaper press] is the grand inquisitor—the expositor—the flagellator—the finisher!

  c.  colloq. Something that finishes, discomfits, or ‘does for’ any one; ‘a settler.’ In Pugilism, one who gives a blow that ends a fight; the blow so given.

1817.  Sporting Mag., L. 54. As a finisher, there is a great analogy between Randall and the late Dutch Sam. Ibid. (1827), XX. 60. He gave him not a single coup de grace, but four or five such finishers, as would have satisfied the appetite of the most ravenous.

1832.  Marryat, N. Forster, xliv. This conversazione was a finisher to Dr. Feasible, who resigned the contest.

1876.  Besant & Rice, Gold. Butterfly, III. vi. 106. When I saw her marriage, by gad, I thought it was a finisher.