[Of somewhat obscure history; but prob. derived from Fugger, the surname of a renowned family of merchants and financiers of Augsburg in the 15th and 16th c.
The name passed as an appellative into several European langs. In German fugger, fucker, focker (see Grimm) has had the senses ‘monopolist, engrosser,’ ‘usurer,’ ‘man of great wealth,’ ‘great merchant,’ and, in certain dialects (doubtless originally through ironical use), ‘huckster, pedlar.’ Kilian, 1598 has Flem. focker ‘monopolist, universal dealer’ (monopola, pantopola), giving fuggerus and fuccardus as popular mod. L. equivalents; and in mod. Du. rijke fokker is an avaricious rich man. Walloon foukeur and Sp. fúcar are contemptuous designations for a man of great wealth. A ‘petty Fugger’ would mean one who on a small scale practises the dishonorable devices for gain popularly attributed to great financiers; it seems possible that the phrase ‘petty fogger of the law,’ applied in this sense to some notorious person, may have caught the popular fancy, and so have given rise to the specialized use in sense 1. Sense 2 was already developed in Ger. dialects (see Grimm), though the channel by which it came to England is unknown. Cf. FOOKER.]
† 1. A person given to underhand practices for the sake of gain; chiefly, a contemptuous designation for a lawyer of a low class. Usually preceded by petty (see PETTIFOGGER). Obs.
1576. A. Fleming, A Panoplie of Epistles, 320. As for this pettie fogger, this false fellowe that is in no credite or countenance.
1587. Harrison, England, II. ix. (1877), I. 206. Brokers betweene the pettie foggers of the lawe and the common people.
1588. M. Kyffin, Terence’s Andria, IV. v. I should be exclaimed vpon to bee a beggerly fogger, greedily hunting after heritage.
c. 1600. Norden, Spec. Brit., Cornw. (1728), 27. As for the baser sorte of people [are] … verie litigious, muche inclined to lawe-quarrels for small causes; by meanes wherof the Fogers and Petie Lawiers (by reason of the remotenes of that Countrie from the tribunall) gett vnto themselues, and that (as is comonly affirmed) very sinisterly, great aduauntage by their combined Practices.
2. dial. ‘A huckster; a petty chapman carrying small wares from village to village’ (Forby, Voc. E. Anglia, a. 1825).
1800. Larwood, Norf. Dialogue, in Skeat, Nine Spec. Eng. Dialects (E.D.S.), 119. The fogger [in the ‘translation’ rendered ‘the man at the chandler’s shop’].
1805. W. Taylor, in Ann. Rev., III. 60/2. All hawkers, foggers, and pedlars, not expecting the same customer twice, dispose of damaged wares at the full price, and exact an undue profit.
3. A middleman in the nail and chain trade.
1868. Morn. Star, 10 March. Down with the ‘foggers,’ says I.
1871. A. S. Harvey, Truck, in Good Words, XII. 610/2. Where, as is often the case, the ‘fogger’ keeps a public-house, the truck system is so worked as to foster drunkenness.
1888. Times, 29 Nov., 9/5. The nailers … are at the mercy of ‘foggers’ or factors.
