[f. LOSE v.1 + -ER1.]
† 1. A destroyer. Obs.
a. 1340. Hampole, Psalter, Cant. 512. I sall be glad in god … my saueoure, noght in þe warld my losere.
1388. in Wyclif’s Sel. Wks., III. 459. Þis court is … loser of al þe worlde.
c. 1611. Chapman, Iliad, XVIII. 109. And when the loser of my friend his death in me shall find; Let death take all.
2. One who loses or suffers loss.
a. 1548. Hall, Chron., Hen. VIII., 60 b. One daie thone parte lost, and the other gained, and likewise the losers regained.
1555. Eden, Decades, 303. I may vppon iust occasion thynke my selfe a looser manye wayes.
1602. Shaks., Ham., IV. v. 143. You will draw both friend and Foe, Winner and Looser.
1608. Burgh Rec. Glasgow (1876), I. 283. That thay be nocht loseris of thair provisioun.
a. 1703. Burkitt, On N. T., Mark x. 31. We may be losers for Christ, we shall never be losers by him.
1849. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., vii. II. 267. He always declared that he had been a loser by his mission.
Proverb. [1533. More, Debell. Salem, Wks. 1018/2. Hit is an olde curtesye at the cardes perdy, to let the leser haue hys wordes.]
1562. J. Heywood, Prov. & Epigr. (1867), 146. Let the loosers haue their wordes.
1599. Sandys, Europæ Spec. (1632), 123. The wisest men have beene … pleased, that losers should have their words.
1634. Sir T. Herbert, Trav., 47. Giue loosers leaue to prate.
1678. South, 12 Serm. (1727), I. 347–8 (J.). Losers and Malecontents, whose Portion and Inheritance is a Freedom to speak.
b. A squanderer or waster (of time).
1650. Jer. Taylor, Holy Living, i. § 1. 8. If one of the Speakers be … trifling, he that hears, and he that answers … are equal losers of their time.
1691. Wood, Ath. Oxon., I. 354. The author was no loser of his time.
c. A horse that loses in a race.
1902. J. Burns, in Speaker, 11 Jan., 419/1. The workman works hard five days, but on the sixth is generally found at the ‘Corner Pin’ spotting winners and catching losers.
3. Billiards. A losing hazard.
1873. Bennett & ‘Cavendish,’ Billiards, 281. There may be a loser left off the white.
1902. J. Roberts, jun., Mod. Billiards, 88. The angle is not suitable for a following loser, so the play is again a loser off the cushion.
