[f. JOB v.2 + -ER1.]
1. One who does jobs or odd pieces of work; one employed to do a job; a hack; one employed by the job, as distinguished from one continuously engaged and paid wages; a piece-worker.
1706. Phillips (ed. Kersey), Jobb, a small piece of Work. Jobber, he that undertakes such Jobbs.
1733. Swift, On Poetry, 312. These are not a thousandth part Of jobbers in the poet’s art.
1791–1823. D’Israeli, Cur. Lit., B. Jonson on Transl. Our translators have usually been the jobbers of booksellers.
1803. W. Taylor, in Ann. Rev., I. 424. Sailors and soldiers are improvident for the same reason as jobbers in a manufactory.
1841. D’Israeli, Amen. Lit. (1867), 523. To this humiliated state of jobbers of old plays, were reduced the most glorious names.
2. One who lets out horses, etc., on hire for a particular job, or for a period; a job-master.
1848. Thackeray, Van. Fair, xxxvii. Nobody in fact was paid. Not the blacksmith who opened the lock;… nor the jobber who let the carriage.
1872. Daily News, 25 March, 5/2. It is to be hoped that during the Easter holidays the Hampstead donkey drivers and Greenwich mule jobbers will not subject their noble steeds to anything like the risks of a Grand National Steeplechase.
3. One who buys goods, etc., in bulk from the producer or importer, and sells them to retail dealers, or to consumers; a broker, a middleman; a small trader or salesman.
In many compounds, as HOUSE-, LAND-JOBBER, etc., q.v.
1670. Act 22 & 23 Chas. II., c. 2 § 2. Jobber, Salesman or other Broker or Factor, who doe or shall commonly buy or sell Cattell for others.
c. 1680. Popish Plot, 1. They have 100000l. in ready Money … used in Trade by Graziers, Jobbers, and Bankers.
1769. De Foe’s Tour Gt. Brit., I. 245. A Fair for Cattle and Lambs,… of late … much lessened in that respect, owing principally to the Jobbers about Horsham, who ingross great Numbers and send them to Smithfield Market.
1805. R. W. Dickson, Pract. Agric. (1807), II. 659. What the Yorkshire jobbers call runts.
1862. Merivale, Rom. Emp. (1865), III. xxvi. 216. Ventidius … had been for a time a jobber of beasts of burden to the public officers.
1887. Jessopp, Arcady, vii. 213. In Norfolk a cattle dealer is commonly called a jobber.
1898. Archæol. Jrnl., LV. 186. One of the Irish jobbers who every autumn bring over Irish bred geese for sale to the farmers to fatten on their stubbles against Christmas.
4. A member of the Stock Exchange, who deals in stocks or shares on his own account; one who acts as a middleman between holders and buyers of stocks or shares; a STOCK-JOBBER; called, in the Stock Exchange itself, a dealer.
1719. (title) The Anatomy of Exchange-Alley:… By a Jobber.
1720. Swift, Fates Clergymen, Wks. 1755, II. II. 28. Acquainted with jobbers in Change-alley.
1812. L. Hunt, in Examiner, 13 Sept., 577/1. This is one of the old tricks of the Stock-jobbers…. But the jobbers do not appear to have thought it worth their while.
1897. Daily News, 27 Sept., 6/6. The jobber exists to create a free market in securities…. If the jobber were eliminated the trouble and worry of the broker would be so much increased that he would be forced at least to double his commissions.
5. One who improperly uses a public office, trust or service for private gain or party advantage; a perpetrator of corrupt jobs.
1739. Hildrop, Lett. Commandm., 18. An absolute Discouragement to all Sorts of Jobbers, Gamesters, Fortune-hunters, and Jockeys.
a. 1745. Swift, Corr. (1766), III. 299. Every squire, almost to a man, is … a racker of his tenants; a jobber of all public works.
1794. G. Rose, Diaries (1860), I. 194. He is an atrocious jobber.
1885. Fletcher, in Collect. (O.H.S.), I. 183. Possibly it was what would now be called a ‘job.’ But, if so, the jobbers had been warned.
b. Borough-jobber: see BOROUGH 7 c, BOROUGHMONGER.
1758. Johnson, Idler, No. 7, ¶ 22. Captain Grim, who never owed any of his advancement to borough-jobbers, or any other corrupters of the people.
1874. Green, Short Hist., x. § 2. 744. Others were ‘close boroughs’ in the hands of jobbers like the Duke of Newcastle.
