1. One who lurks or lies concealed: freq. employed as a term of abuse in early quots. lit. and fig.
a. 1325. Names of Hare, in Rel. Ant., I. 133. The wilde der, the lepere, The shorte der, the lerkere.
1399. Langl., Rich. Redeles, III. 57. But as sone as þey [the young birds] … steppe kunne, Þan cometh and crieth her owen kynde dame, and they ffolwith þe vois,… and leueth þe lurker þat hem er ladde.
a. 1400–50. Alexander, 3543. Þou litill thefe, þou losangere, þou lurkare in cities.
c. 1470. Henryson, Fables, v. Parl. Beasts, xl. ‘For goddis lufe, my lord, gif me the law Of this lurker’; with that lowrence let draw.
1519. Horman, Vulg., viii. 89 b. He is a starter a syde or a lurkar [L. emansor].
1620. Bp. Hall, Hon. Marr. Clergie, I. xxiv. 129. Or, if this lawlesse Lurker had euer had any taste of the Ciuill or Canon Law, hee might haue beene able to construe that Maxime.
1641. Milton, Ch. Govt., I. vi. Wks. 1851, III. 121. It was well knowne what a bold lurker schisme was even in the houshold of Christ.
1702. C. Mather, Magn. Chr., VII. App. (1852), 631. Two men at Exeter were killed by some of the same dangerous lurkers.
1821. Scott, Kenilw., xix. In hopes to find that the lurker had disappeared.
1870. Morris, Earthly Par., II. II. 498. Then did the lurkers from the gully bound.
2. A begging impostor; a petty thief.
1851. Mayhew, Lond. Labour, I. 219. Armed with these [sham official documents], the patterer becomes a ‘lurker,’—that is, an impostor. Ibid., 363. A lurker being strictly one who loiters about for some dishonest purpose.
¶ 3. App. misused for LURCHER.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 317/2. Lurcare…, lurco.
