subs. (vagrants’).—1. A street singer of ballads, dying speeches, etc. Rarely heard now except in the poorest neighbourhoods. His practice is peculiar. One man gets as far as he can, and when his voice cracks his companion takes things up. For this reason the business is conducted by a brace of men, by a man and woman, or by a woman and child.—See quot. 1851. [From CHAUNT, to sing, + ER.] Also called a PAPER-WORKER (q.v.); and DEATH-HUNTER (q.v.). FRENCH SYNONYMS are un chanteur à la balade or au baladage; un goualeur or une goualeuse (see EUGÈNE SUE, Mystères de Paris); une cigale (popular: a female street-singer); and un braillard. Fourbesque, granchetto (a term also applied to one who speaks gibberish or thieves’ lingo).
1851–61. H. MAYHEW, London Labour and the London Poor, vol. I., p. 229. The CHAUNTERS, or those who do not cry, but (if one may so far stretch the English language) sing the contents of the ‘papers’ they vend. Ibid., p. 240. The running patterer … is accompanied generally by a CHAUNTER.… The CHAUNTER not only sings, but fiddles.
2. (common).—See CHANTER, sense 1.
