[f. STOCK v.1 and sb.1 + -ER1.]
1. A workman who makes or fits stocks, esp. gun-stocks.
1641. Sc. Acts Chas. I. (1870), V. 562/2. Stockeres of Gunes.
1881. Greener, Gun, 249. The stocker upon receiving the stock first roughs it into shape.
1886. Daily Tel., 9 Feb., 7/5. Gun Maker. Wanted a stocker and screwer.
1892. Simmonds, Dict. Trade, Suppl., Stocker, a man engaged in making stock-locks.
2. A workman employed in felling or grubbing up trees. local.
1686. Plot, Staffordsh., 211. Under the hands of Francis Marshall, Thomas March, Stockers.
1890. Gloucester Gloss., Stockers, men employed to clear out the butt of a tree ready for felling.
3. local. (See quot.)
1879. Miss Jackson, Shropsh. Word-bk., Stocker, an implement used for ‘stocking’ up turnips; it has two prongs and a handle four feet long.
4. U.S. and Canada. An animal, esp. a young steer or heifer, sold to be finally butchered, but kept as stock until matured or fattened; distinguished from killer. (W., 1911.)
1881. Chicago Times, 1 June. Stockers and feeders were dull and weaker.
1891. Daily News, 2 July, 6/4. Animals for fattening known as stockers.
1891. Times, 1 Oct., 9/4. The bulk of the Canadians were only stockers.
5. dial. Fish of other kinds taken when fishing for herring or pilchards (E.D.D.); a sum of money accruing to a member of the crew as his share in this. Also attrib. as stocker-bait.
1883. W. Clark Russell, Sailors’ Lang., 140. Stocker-bait.—Small fish given by smack-owners to their apprentices to sell for their own profit.
1904. in Eng. Dial. Dict., s.v., (Cornwall.) We get some mackerel and pollock in the pilchard nets or the herring nets. That goes for what we call ‘stocker.’ The crew divides that.
1914. Times, 14 July, 3/2. Stocker is explained as being money received from the sale of tails of a fish called the monk, roes, shell-fish, &c. Ibid. They took the stocker, they sold it, and they handed the proceeds to some member of the crew for division between himself and the other members entitled to it.
