Also 9 -gilder. [f. SOW sb.1] One whose business it is to geld or spay sows.
c. 1515. Cocke Lorell’s B., 4. Here is gylys Iogeler of ayebery, And hym sougelder of lothe bery.
1530. Palsgr., 273/1. Sowe geldre, chastrevx de trvyes.
1596. Nashe, Saffron Walden, Wks. (Grosart), III. 169. Vpon euerie stage hee hath beene brought for a Sicophant and a Sow-gelder.
c. 1614. Fletcher, etc. Wit at Sev. Weapons, IV. ii. Why thou sawcy issue of some travelling Sow-gelder, What makes love in thy mouth?
1654. R. Whitlock, Ζωοτομια, 131. They never use any of this stuff to their Sow-gelder, or Farrier.
a. 1722. Lisle, Husb. (1757), 407. A sow-gelder that had cut for me, cut four pigs for a neighbouring farmer.
1749. Fielding, Tom Jones, IV. viii. Old Echepole, the sowgelder.
1820. Shelley, Œd. Tyr., I. 70. Call in … Moses the sow-gelder.
1857. Borrow, Romany Rye, xvii. Two respectable-looking individuals, whether farmers or sow-gelders, I know not.
b. In references to the horn blown by the gelder to announce his arrival at a place.
1604. Middleton, Father Hubburd’s T., Wks. (Bullen), VIII. 73. Winding his pipe like a horn … which must needs make him look like a sow-gelder.
1621. Burton, Anat. Mel., III. ii. III. iii. (1651), 472. There needs no more … but a cryer to go before them … or for defect a Sowgelder to blow.
1673. [R. Leigh], Transp. Reh., 135. You are disturb’d with the tooting of a sow-gelders horn.
1711. Addison, Spect., No. 251, ¶ 4. The Sowgelder’s Horn has indeed something musical in it, but this is seldom heard within the Liberties.
Hence Sow-geldering vbl. sb.
1664. Butler, Hud., II. i. 52/718. Semiramis of Babylon, Who … lay’d foundation Of Sow-geldering operation.
