subs. (old: now recognised).—1. A pedlar; specifically a hawker of BRUMMAGEM (q.v.), and so-called smuggled goods (hence senses 2 and 3). In the population returns of 1831 DUFFER = one who gets a living by cheating pawnbrokers.—See DUDDER and DUFF.
1796. P. COLQUHOUN, A Treatise on the Police of the Metropolis, (3rd ed.), 166. Sharpers who are known by the name of DUFFERS. These go about from house to house, and attend public-houses, inns, and fairs, pretending to sell smuggled goods.
1843. DICKENS, Martin Chuzzlewit, ch. xxxvii., p. 361. Nor did it mark him out as the prey of ring-droppers, pea and thimble-riggers, DUFFERS, touters, or any of those bloodless sharpers, who are, perhaps, a little better known to the Police.
1849. THACKERAY, Pendennis, ch. lx. Now it is a fact that Colonel Altamont had made a purchase of cigars and French silks from some DUFFERS in Fleet Street about this period.
1851–61. H. MAYHEW, London Labour and the London Poor, vol. i., p. 413. An intelligent street-seller, versed in all the arts and mysteries of this trade, told me that he understood by a DUFFER, a man who sold goods under false pretences, making out that they were smuggled, or even stolen, so as to enhance the idea of their cheapness.
2. (colloquial).—Anything (or person) worthless; anything sham. [From sense 1.]
d. 1845. HOOD [quoted in Annandale]. DUFFERS (if I may use a slang term which has now become classical, and which has no exact equivalent in English proper) are generally methodical and old. Fosset certainly was a DUFFER.
1869. E. WOOD, Roland Yorke, ch. xi. Don’t you think, Hamish, he must have been a great DUFFER to go and marry before he knew how he could keep a wife?
1872. Standard, 12 Sept. ‘Who is to blame?’ we ask, in the interests of our government, and natural curiosity. ‘That DUFFER in feathers’ is the curt reply, pointing with the finger of scorn at one hero whom we had mistaken for something little short of a field marshal.
1877. W. H. THOMSON, Five Years’ Penal Servitude, iv. 264. I’d several sovs—good ones—with me, and also a whole lot of ‘DUFFERS.’
1884. HAWLEY SMART, From Post to Finish, p. 10. He made no bones about calling her stupid, and was more apt to call her a little DUFFER than to sympathise with her when she got into trouble.
1889. Answers, 29 June, p. 66, col. 1. If the note is a genuine one the water-mark will then stand out plainly. If a DUFFER it will almost disappear.
3. (nautical).—A female smuggler.
