Obs. Also 4–6 -leper(e, 5 -lepar, 7 Sc. -leiper. [f. LAND sb. + LEAP v. (in the sense ‘to run’) + -ER1.] = LAND-LOPER.
[1362. Langl., P. Pl., A. V. 258. Þat Penitencia is pike he schulde polissche newe, And lepe with him ouerlond al his lyf tyme.] Ibid. (1377), B. XV. 207. He ne is nouȝte in lolleres, ne in lande-leperes [v.r. land-lepynge] hermytes.
14[?]. Voc., in Wr.-Wülcker, 565/46. Arvambulus, a londlepar.
c. 1460. Towneley Myst., xvi. 166. Gett I those land lepars I breke ilka bone.
1560–77. Misogonus, IV. ii. 11 (Brandl). Thou landleper, thou runagat roge.
1565. Calfhill, Answ. Treat. Crosse, 51 b. Then eyther was your author a lyer, or a leude byshop: to forsake hys charge and be such a landleaper.
1621. Burton, Anat. Mel., I. ii. III. xv. (1676), 83/2. Let Marriners learn Astronomy … Land-leapers Geography. Ibid., II. iii. IV. 213/2. Alexander, Cæsar, Trajan, Adrian, were as so many land-leapers, now in the East, now in the West, little at home.
a. 1670. Hacket, Abp. Williams, II. (1692), 111. As Budæus says proverbially of a Land-leaper, that makes himself a Cripple and cries out for help, Tolle eum qui non novit.
1706. Phillips (ed. Kersey), Land-leaper’s-spurge, a kind of Herb.
Hence † Landleapt a., ? vagabond, runaway; Land-leaping sb. (arch.), a vagabond style of living; † a., vagabond.
1377. Land-lepynge [see above].
1602. Warner, Alb. Eng., X. lv. (1612), 245. With her, Mendoza, Papists here, forren, and Land-leapt Foes.
1886. M. K. Macmillan, Dagonet the Jester, iii. 135. In good sooth your learning and land-leaping is nought but a kind of fooling.
