[f. TALK v. + -ER1.] One who talks or is given to talking; a speaker, a conversationalist; a talkative person.
c. 1386. Chaucer, Pars. T., ¶ 304. Eke if … he be a talker of ydel wordes of folye or vileynye.
1470–85. Malory, Arthur, X. lvi. 508. The meryest knyghte … and the maddest talker.
1648. Milton, Observ. Art. Peace, Wks. 1851, IV. 564. The overworne objection of every triviall Talker.
1701. W. Wotton, Hist. Rome, i. 15. Great Talkers should always be mistrusted.
1815. Jane Austen, Emma, xli. I am rather a talker; and now and then I have let a thing escape me which I should not.
1861. Craik, Hist. Eng. Lit., II. 248. Bolingbroke … was one of the most brilliant orators and talkers.
1875. Emerson, Lett. Soc. Aims, Eloquence, ¶ 15. These talkers are of that class who prosper, like the celebrated schoolmaster, by being only one lesson ahead of the pupil.
1882. J. Schouler, Hist. U.S., II. ix. 426. Delegates like the present were prudent rather than earnest, better talkers than actors; men by no means calculated for bold measures.
1916. A. S. Neill, Notebook of a Scottish Schoolmaster, in McBride’s Mag., XCVII. April, 143. If knowledge is so important, why is a university professor usually a talker of platitudes?
b. Comb., as talker-down, one who talks down; so talker-out; talker-seer, a seer who is also a talker.
1833. Mrs. Browning, Prometheus Bound, Poet. Wks. 1889, I. 205. The talker-down Of scorn by scorn.
1884. Gosse, in Fortn. Rev., Dec., 784. Such later talker-seers as Coleridge, De Quincey, and Carlyle.
1901. Daily Chron., 22 May, 7/7. Mr. Banbury, the professional talker out of the House.
1908. E. G. Henham, Heather, vii. 102. Aw, yew’m a proper talker down to Downacombe, they ses. Yew stands up on the lifting-stock and tells the volk they’m put upon.
