Forms: 1 hléapere, 4 lepere, 5 lepare, 6– leaper. [OE. hléapere: see LEAP v. and -ER1.] One who leaps.
† 1. A runner; a dancer. Also with advs. Obs.
a. 1000. O. E. Chron., an. 889. On þissum ʓeare wæs nan færeld to Rome, buton tueʓen hleaperas Ælfred cyng sende mid ʓewritum.
c. 1000. Ags. Voc., in Wr.-Wülcker, 311. Saltator, hleapere.
1382. [implied in LEAPERESS].
1393. Langl., P. Pl., C. X. 107. The whiche aren lunatik lollers and leperes a-boute.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 297/1. Lepare, or rennare, cursor. Lepare, or rennar a-wey, fugax.
1580. Hollyband, Treas. Fr. Tong., Saulteur ou danseur, a leaper, or daunser.
† b. [After Du. looper.] An irregular soldier.
1604. E. Grimstone, Hist. Siege Ostend, 116. Generall Vere sent forth some of his Leapers or aduenturers to take some prisoner of the enemies Campe.
2. A person or an animal that leaps or jumps.
c. 1325. Names of Hare, in Rel. Ant., I. 133. The wilde der, the lepere.
1573. L. Lloid, Pilgr. Princes (1607), 100. Wrastlers, leapers, runners and such like games were appointed.
1700. Wallis, in Collect. (O. H. S.), I. 318. Who did … out-leap … the next-best leaper … by seven inches.
1774. Goldsm., Nat. Hist. (1776), II. 366. The Danish horses were good leapers.
1836. C. Shaw, Lett., 9 May, in Mem. (1837), 568. The most extraordinary leaper, and perhaps most active man in Europe.
1861. Whyte-Melville, Mkt. Harb., 275. The two horses … both capital leapers.
b. An animal that uses leaping as a mode of progression.
1796. Morse, Amer. Geog., II. 254. They are also called springers, or leapers, from the agility with which they leap, rather than walk.
1828. Stark, Elem. Nat. Hist., I. 332. Laurenti, in 1768, in his Synopsis of Reptiles, divides them into three orders, viz. Leapers, as the frogs; Walkers, as the lizards; and Serpents.
1881. Cassell’s Nat. Hist., V. 121. These true Orthoptera may be readily divided into three tribes, namely, the Leapers, or Saltatoria, the Runners, or Cursoria; and the Earwigs, or Euplexoptera.
3. A hollow cylinder with a hook at one end, employed in untwisting old ropes. Cf. LOPER. (Knight, Dict. Mech., 1875.)
