roper

English

Etymology

From Middle English roper, ropere; equivalent to rope +‎ -er.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈɹəʊpə(ɹ)/

• Audio (AU)

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Noun

roper (plural ropers)

1. Agent noun of rope; one who uses a rope, especially one who throws a lariat or lasso.
   • 1910 November, George Pattullo, “Molly”, in McClure's Magazine, volume 36, page 28:

     Instead of taking to the open and falling a prey to a roper, the calf lunged sideways and went under the horse-pasture fence.

   • 2017, Patricia McLinn, Ride the River:

     I'm a roper — mostly tie-down, but I do some team, too.

   • 2021, Jody Westbrook Bergman, Cook Like a Tie-Down Roper: Menus and Memories:

     After a roper flanks a calf (picks it up and lays it down on the ground oh so very gently), he/she decides to wrap one time or two times prior to the Hooey (the Hooey is the half hitch that locks your tie together).

2. (dated) A ropemaker (a maker of ropes).
   • 1841, Thomas Miller, Gideon Giles the Roper, page 27:

     But Gideon Giles was no common man, although a roper.

   • 2006, Shannon McSheffrey, Marriage, Sex, and Civic Culture in Late Medieval London, page 143:

     A roper's wife, for instance, was able to fool her incredibly gullible husband while having an affair with a prior literally right under the roper's nose, the guilty pair having sex while they lay together in the same bed as the sleeping roper.

3. One who ropes goods; a packer.
   • 1902, The National Nurseryman, page 134:

     I have seen 50 to 60 men doing this work, and the men vied with each other to see which could cap or rope the best; and if a bale was turned off from the capper that did not look well, some of the others would criticise it, and the same with ropers.

   • 1938, United States. National youth administration, Occupational Briefs: Meat industry, page 5:

     About thirty per cent of all the women employed in the packing plant are in the sausage department. They work as linkers, tie-ers, ropers and hangers; help in the preparation of the raw materials, mix spices, and wash pans.

   • 2001, Marine Fisheries Review, page 26:

     The diggers pay their "ropers" $10/bu for "littlenecks" and $1/bu for "cherrystones." On good days, each digger may gross almost $600. After paying the roper, this leaves him with about $500 a day before other expenses are taken out.

4. (slang) Synonym of outside man (“accomplice who locates a mark to be swindled by a confidence trickster”)
   • 1968, Marvin B. Scott, The Racing Game, page 110:

     The "roper" will inform the mark that such horses can't be picked out of the Form; what one needs is inside information.

   • 2007, Seth Grahame-Smith, How to Survive a Horror Movie, page 49:

     Here's how it usually goes: You're forced to rely on the only tow truck driver in the entire county, who turns out to be a roper for the local inbred family of serial killers.

   • 2012, Wilbur R. Miller, The Social History of Crime and Punishment in America:

     For example, one person may have a specialty in cooling off the mark, while another is able to lure in the mark with ease; these people may be referred to as the “roper” or the “outside man”.

   • 2021, Cyril M. Kornbluth, A Mile Beyond the Moon:

     What have you got—a store con? Shall you be needing a roper?

5. A person hired by a gambling establishment to locate potential customers and bring them in.

   Synonyms: lugger, picker-up, roper-in, runner, steerer

   • 1888, An Ordinance in Revision of the Ordinances Governing the City of Kansas, page 364:

     Any person who, in this city, lives idly and is a gambler, or roper, steerer or capper for any gambling house or room, or any gambling game, or who lives idly and has the reputation of being a gambler, or roper, steerer or capper for any gambling house or room, or any gambling game, shall be considered and treated as a vagrant.

   • 2011, Clive Cussler, Justin Scott, The Spy:

     Ropers like the one he'd sent packing would never steer him to such a highclass joint. So he kept giving the ropers the shove while he watched to see arriving customers point the way.

   • 2012, G. R. Williamson, Frontier Gambling:

     His old partner Allen Jones hired him as a roper for his gambling operation located across the street from the St. Charles Hotel.

   • 2019, John Philip Quinn, Fools of Fortune; or, Gambling and Gamblers:

     He first appeared among St. Louis sporting men as a “roper” and venturesome player against the bank.

6. (slang) An undercover informer.
   • 1936, United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Education and Labor, Violations of Free Speech and Rights of Labor, page 137:

     Supposing in a plant on a job a roper roped a man, who was, let us say, employed by the company, and maybe a member of the union, how much would he get after he was roped?

   • 2003, Charles H. McCormick, Seeing Reds, page 45:

     Such an operative might also be the contact for one or more "missionaries" or labour spies. The roper who was sent for was Louis M. Wendell.

   • 2014, Peggy Robertson, The Lincoln Body Snatchers:

     By 1876, however, he was well launched on a career as a professional informer, or “roper,” for the Secret Service.

7. (gaming) Any of a variety of monsters with tentacles that they use to capture victims.
   • 1991, Thomas Miller, The Adventurers: Book Two:

     The party ran into a statue of a roper, which somehow attacked them.

   • 2016, Anthony Uyl et al., Gigas Monstrum: Book II, page 244:

     Stone ropers are distant relatives of the common roper though the two races are do not (as far as sages know) associate with one another.

   • 2019, Keith Ammann, The Monsters Know What They're Doing, page 172:

     I understand this to mean that passive Wisdom (Perception)—and even Searching—will never reveal a roper for what it is as long as it holds still. Its Stealth skill comes into play only if it's moving. Thus, a stationary roper takes its opponents by surprise, as long as its eye is closed and its tendrils retracted until it strikes.

   • 2021, Llo Yuu Tanaka, Reincarnated as a Sword:

     Moments ago, vines had shot from the ground to lash at us; I'd thought at first that they were the tentacles of a worm or roper monster, but the leaves revealed that we were dealing·with some kind of plant creature.

Related terms

Translations

Anagrams

• Perro, porer, prore, repro

Middle English

Alternative forms

• ropar, ropere

Etymology

From rop (“rope”) +‎ -er.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈrɔːpər(ə)/

Noun

roper (plural ropers)

1. A maker or seller of rope.
   • c. 1370–1390, [William Langland], “”, in The Vision of Pierce Plowman [...], London: Roberte Crowley, , published 1550, →OCLC, folio xxv, verso:

     They could not by their conscience accorden in truthe, / Tyll Robyn the roper arose by the south

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

Descendants

• English: roper

References

• “rōper(e, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.

Norwegian Bokmål

Verb

roper

1. present of rope

Norwegian Nynorsk

Verb

roper

1. present of ropa