subs. (colloquial).—A maid-servant’s sweetheart; a beau. For synonyms, see JOMER.
1838. DICKENS, Nicholas Nickleby, ch. xv. Five servants kept. No man. No FOLLOWERS.
1860. Chambers’s Journal, XIII., p. 32. No FOLLOWERS allowed.
1870. Spectator, 15 Jan. It is safer, unkind as it may seem, to forbid the presence of a ‘FOLLOWER’ in the house. A girl is less likely to get into mischief when she is walking with her friend in the street or talking with him over the area gate, than when she receives him alone in the kitchen.
1872. The Ladies, 29 June, p. 335. If you take into consideration that ‘FOLLOWERS’ are in most houses strictly forbidden, what wonder is it that girls are now and then caught flirting with the butcher and the baker at the area railings?
