Forms: see THRASH v.; also 6–7 tres(s)her. [f. THRASH, THRESH v. + -ER1.] One who or that which thrashes or threshes.
1. One who separates grain from the straw by beating with a flail, or otherwise. (More usually spelt thresher.)
1380. in Thorold Rogers, Oxford City Doc. (1891), 39. De Waltero le thressher.
c. 1400. Laud Troy Bk., 9333. Echon on other ffaste doth bete, Ryght as threscheres doth on whete.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 492/2. Threschare, triturator, flagellator.
1486. Bk. St. Albans, F vj b. A Thraue of Throsheris.
1535. Coverdale, Isa. xxi. 10. O my felowe throsshers and fanners.
1593. Shaks., 3 Hen. VI., II. i. 131. A lazie Thresher with a Flaile.
1616. Surfl. & Markh., Country Farme, 18. Your Barne, with his great dore … to giue light to the Threshers.
1632. Massinger, City Madam, II. ii. To sit like a fool at home, and eye your thrashers.
1641. Best, Farm. Bks. (Surtees), 143. Others … give to theire thrashers 5d. a quarter for oates.
1707. Mortimer, Husb. (1721), I. 36. A good Thrasher can thrash out but about six Gallons in a Day.
1784. Cowper, Task, I. 356. We may discern the thresher at his task. Thump after thump resounds the constant flail.
1859. Jephson, Brittany, iii. 23. The threshers … struck the corn alternately.
1864. H. Ainsworth, John Law, V. ix. I lays about me right and left like a thrasher.
b. (a) Each of the beaters in a threshing-machine. (b) A threshing machine.
1805. Dickson, Pract. Agric., I. 30. If the unthrashed corn goes in sideways or irregularly, the thrashers can have but little power upon it.
1877. Knight, Dict. Mech., 2554/1. Meikle … invented a machine in 1786, which is the type of modern thrashers.
1884. Manchester Exam., 30 Sept., 5/7. Teams of horses draw the corn to the thrasher.
1891. T. Hardy, Tess, xlvii. The hum of the thresher … increased to a raving whenever the supply of corn fell short of the regular quantity.
2. A sea-fox or fox-shark, Alopias vulpes; so called from the very long upper division of the tail, with which it lashes an enemy. Also called thresher- or thrasher-fish, -shark.
α. 1609. Newes fr. Bermudas, July, in Force, Hist. Tracts, II. 22. The Threasher keepeth above him, & with a mighty great thing like unto a flaile, hee so bangeth the whale, that hee will roare as though it thundered.
1630. Donne, Progr. Soul, 351. The Flail-finn’d Thresher, and steel-beak’d Sword-fish.
1758. Borlase, Nat. Hist. Cornw., xxiii. § 3. 265. The sea-fox, Vulpecula, or Simia marina...; this shark we call the Thresher, from the motion of its long fox-like tail with which it strikes or threshes its larger and less agile enemy the grampus.
1845. Gosse, Ocean, iii. (1849), 146. Another Shark, often called the Thresher,… is said to use its muscular tail … to inflict terrible slaps on the Whale.
β. 1638. Davenant, Madagascar, Wks. (1673), 206. The martiall Musick might incite The Sword-fish, Thrasher, and the Whale to fight.
1712. E. Cooke, Voy. S. Sea, 173. The Spaniards say the Thrashers and Sword-Fishes often kill the Whales.
1860. J. Couch, Brit. Fishes, I. 38. Instances are reported where a Sword fish on the one hand and a Thrasher on the other, have persecuted a large Whale.
3. One who thrashes or beats another.
1907. Daily Chron., 21 March, 5/5. A Bill … introduced … into the Legislature of Pennsylvania legalising the thrashing of editors … who wrongfully comment on individuals. The Bill makes the proof of publication of a libel a complete defence if the editor sues the thrasher for assault and battery.
4. attrib. and Comb., as thresher-fish, -shark = 2; thresher- or thrasher-whale, a grampus or killer, as Orca gladiator.
1865. De Morgan, in Athenæum, No. 1981. 504/2. As the thresher-fish behaves towards the whale.
1888. Ayr Advertiser, s July, 6. A very large specimen of the fox or ‘thresher’ shark was recently caught … at Port-na-Luing.
1905. Daily Chron., 5 July, 6/6. A thrasher whale, measuring 10ft., and weighing 2 cwt. Ibid. (1906), 11. June, 5/5. Three Southwold fishermen have secured in the bay a thresher fish.
