subs. (old).—See quot. 1509, and PUTTER-ON.
1509. BARCLAY [JAMIESON (1874), ii. 50], Ship of Fools. [T. L. KINGTON-OLIPHANT, The New English, i. 378. There is the word PROMOTER used for a lawyer; fifty years later it was degraded to mean an informer.]
1563. FOXE, Acts and Monuments [CATTLEY]. [T. L. KINGTON-OLIPHANT, The New English, i. 550. Barclay had used PROMOTER for a lawyer; Foxe constantly uses the word to signify an informer, and this last word is also employed.]
1608. A Yorkshire Tragedy, i. 2. My second son must be a PROMOTER, and my third a thief.
2. (colloquial).—A fool-catcher.
