or dommerer, dummerer, subs. (old).—A beggar feigning to be deaf and dumb; also, a madman.
1567. HARMAN, A Caveat or Warening for Common Cursetors, p. 57. These DOMMERARS are leud and most subtyll people: the moste part of these are Watch men, and wyll neuer speake, vnlesse they haue extreame punishment, but wyll gape, and with a maruelous force wyll hold downe their toungs doubled, groning for your charyty, and holding vp their handes full pitiously, so that with their deepe dissimulation they get very much.
1621. BURTON, The Anatomy of Melancholy, I., II., IV., vi., 233 (1836). It compels some miserable wretches to counterfeit several diseases, to dismember, make themselves blind, lame, to have a more plausible cause to beg … we have DUMMERERS, Abraham men, etc.
1671. R. HEAD, The English Rogue, pt. I., ch. v. (Repr. 1874), p. 49. DOMMERAR, a Mad-man.
1706. E. COLES, English Dictionary. DOMMEROR, c. a madman.
1785. GROSE, A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, s.v.
1859. G. W. MATSELL, Vocabulum; or, The Rogue’s Lexicon, s.v. DOMMERER. A fellow that pretends to be deaf and dumb.
