"potwalloper" - Word of the Day from the OED

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potwalloper, n.

DRAFT REVISION Sept. 2009

Brit. /ptwlp/, U.S. /ptwlpr/  Forms: . 17- pot-walloper, 18 pot-wallopper, 18 pot-wolloper, 18 pot-wollupper (U.S.).. 17 pot-wallader (irreg.). [Alteration of POTWALLER n., after WALLOP v. (compare WALLOP v. 3); compare earlier POT-WALLONER n. In sense 2 punningly after POT n.¹ and WALLOP v. In sense 3 apparently by association with WALLOPER n. (compare WALLOPER n. 2) and WALLOPING adj. (compare WALLOPING adj. 2, and compare slightly later POT-WALLOPING adj. 2).] 

    1. a. = POTWALLER n. Now hist.

1744 C. SMITH Antient & Present State County Down iii. 92 Newry is a Burrough Town, and sends to Parliament two Burgesses, of whom the Inhabitants (vulgarly called Pot-Wallopers) who pay Scot and Lot, are the Electors. 1785 F. GROSE Classical Dict. Vulgar Tongue, Pot-wallopers, persons entitled to vote in certain boroughs, by having boiled a pot there. 1790 M DUNSFORD Hist. Mem. Tiverton IV. 180 Anno 1603. The potwalladers elected two burgesses to represent the borough of Tiverton, in the first parliament of King James I. They were returned by the portreeve. 1831 Blackwood's Edinb. Mag. 30 33 The pot-wallopers of Westminster, Southwark, and Preston, are to vote alongside of the £10 householders of the Tower Hamlets, Manchester, and Birmingham. 1850 T. CARLYLE Latter-day Pamphlets VI. 35 What safety will there be in..ten thousand brawling potwallopers? 1884 Manch. Examiner 3 Dec. 4/7 We shall become a nation of potwallopers, with the addition that every lodger is supposed to wallop his own kettle as well as householders. 1988 Newsday (N.Y.) (Nexis) 4 Dec. 43 A pot-walloper is a voter Before England's Reform Act of 1832, only householders could vote in parliamentary elections. The test for determining whether a person was a householder..was this: In his dwelling, did that person have a separate fireplace on which his own pot was boiled? 2005 Western Morning News (Plymouth) (Nexis) 24 May 23 A Potwalloper was someone who had the right to vote if they had a separate hearth on which to boil a pot.

    b. derogatory. A fool. Also: an impostor, an upstart.

1820 Sporting Mag. 7 80 Do you take me for..a pot~walloperan assa fool? 1905 Westm. Gaz. 6 Feb. 1/3 The term potwalloper was indignantly resented as a most improper and scandalous one, which should be withdrawn. 1980 K. BOYLE Fifty Stories 169 Upstarts!..Pot-wallopers like Napoleon!

    2. U.S. slang. A cook, esp. on a ship; a kitchen worker, a person engaged in menial work.

1859 J. R. BARTLETT Dict. Americanisms (ed. 2), Pot-Walloper, a scullion. 1871 M. SCHELE DE VERE Americanisms 522 Potwalloper..is in the United States..a scullion or a slovenly person. 1890 Cent. Dict., Pot-walloper,..a cook aboard ship; a pot-wrestler... A scullion. 1927 Amer. Speech 2 362 Cook in a lumber camp. ‘Do you know where we can find a good pot-walloper?’ 1942 F. R. MEYER Fighting Talk, Pot walloper, Dish washer. 2003 Morning Call (Allentown, Pa.) (Nexis) 14 Dec. S71 Ethel had wanted to become a nurse, but her mother deemed nurses to be ‘pot wallopers’ who did little more than carry bedpans.

    3. irreg. Something very big and unwieldy. Cf. POT-WALLOPING adj. 2. Obs. rare.

1896 Daily News 14 Dec. 6/1 Others were father's bootsyou know the sort of thingregular potwalloperstensin which the tiny foot is almost lost.

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