basher n.1
1. a professional fighter (and as such used as a professional nickname).
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Policeman’s Lantern 35: [title] The Man-Basher. [Ibid.] 44: ‘Does that mean for simply knocking him down?’ [...] ‘It means whatever you mean,’ returned the professional ‘basher’. | |
| [perf.] ‘All for the Best’ 🎵 Joe Bonzo the Birmingham Basher. | |
| Daily Tel. 11 Oct. 12/6: He fights as if he enjoys fighting; and there is much of a basher in him [OED]. | |
 | ‘Ginger’ in Bulletin 24 July 50/1: The biggest of the heavies called himself Basher Kelly, and looked the part. | |
| Portsmouth Eve. News 15 May 10/6: A Special Arranged Heavyweight Match [...] Geo. Finnie v. Charlie Basher Green (the Wigan Thunderbolt). |
2. a thug; also attrib.
| Theatre VI 40: A ‘man-basher’ [...] is an individual who, for a certain sum of money, will get any obnoxious person of your acquaintance out of the way, and secure his ultimate discovery in the River Thames. | |
| Hooligan Nights 15: The basher of toffs flourishes in the Kingsland Road. | |
| Nights in Town 299: A Basher’s Night Out. | |
| Yorks. Eve. Post 4 Oct. 7/2: The Connemara Basher [...] picked up a brick, which he threw the window. He said, ‘I will fight the six best men in Huddersfield. I come from Connemara where I mopped the whole town up’. | |
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Brisbane Courier 30 Sept. 12/6: ‘Basher’ gangs [...] have been wandering around Sydney for months intimidating men who were honestly working. | |
| Tramp and Other Stories 25: Making us into a basher-gang! | |
| Gloucs. Echo 4 Nov. 1/5: The father of ‘Basher’ Bates, the dead Normandy V.C., will not sell his son’s clothes. | |
| Smith’s Wkly (Sydney) 25 Dec. 6/3: May-I [...] wanted for him to become a prominent business man, like a high-class basher. | |
| Come in Spinner (1960) 203: This place is lousy with bashers and thugs. | |
| Ghost Squad 98: Basher Field, a real villain [...] a tough, wizened old fellow whose punishments had included the ‘cat’ . | |
| Bunch of Ratbags 172: Most of the participants were small-time crooks, standover men, S.P. bookies, perverts, bashers and street-fighters. | |
| (con. 1930s) ‘Keep Moving’ 49: These railway basher gangs operated as legal extensions of the police force [...] They were physically big and mentally small, and all considered themselves much superior to their victims. | |
| (con. 1940s–60s) ‘The Bastard from the Bush’ in Snatches and Lays 82: Let’s make him our star basher, he’ll live up to his name. | |
| (con. 1964-65) Sex and Thugs and Rock ’n’ Roll 153: Those gangs of Pommy bashers he’d heard so much about. | |
| Layer Cake 8: Down in the lower levels of this swindle you need your bashers, people respond. | |
| ‘Cockleshell’ in Turning (2005) 123: In his day he was a professional rabble-rouser, a drunk, a basher. | |
| Viva La Madness 103: Sonny’s a basher but he’s grafted, through hard work and ruthlessness. |
3. (Aus.) a pimp.
| Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 27 Feb. 6/6: ‘Don't you go & tell yer basher’— / He continues very mild; / At witch she becomes indignent. / Like a silly little child. |
4. (UK Und.) that member of a smash-and-grab team who breaks the shop window.
| Phenomena in Crime 136: The ‘basher’ breaks the windows or grilles. |
5. a prostitute.
| Barry McKenzie [comic strip] in Complete Barry McKenzie (1988) 79: He could write a book that’d bring a blush to the cheeks of Betty the Bondi Beach basher. |
6. (Aus. prison) a notably violent prison officer.
| Aus. Prison Sl. Gloss. 🌐 Basher. A prison officer renowned for using the baton. Term is often associated with pre-Nagle Bathurst Gaol (NSW), as in ‘the Bathurst Bashers’. | |
| Intractable [ebook] He was one of the old bashers who [...] became notorious for brandishing a loaded shotgun at prisoners during the 1970 Bathurst strike. |
7. see queer-basher under queer n.