spieler n.
1. a swindler, a fraud, a card-sharp, a crooked gambler; thus speelering adj., swindling [ the underlying implication is a sense of humour behind the cheating; thus Henry Lawson (1895): ‘He was [...] good-natured in his way; he was a “spieler” pure and simple, and did things in humorous style’].
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | Vocabulum 83: spealers Gamblers. [...] speiler A gambler. | |
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 108/1: In we went to the Bold captain’s, and asking if any of the ‘spielers’ were up stairs, was answered in the affirmative. | |
| Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 5 Oct. n.p.: The ‘flats’ pinched some of the ‘speilers’. | |
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Bulletin (Sydney) 12 June 2/3: The gambling mania has reached Auckland. Michael Gallagher, who keeps a ‘sporting’ house in that town, has been fined in the Police Court for allowing professional ‘speelers’ to play in his house; and the light-fingered gentry were ordered by the Bench to ‘ seek fresh scenes and pastures new’. | |
| Secrets of Tramp Life Revealed 11: I will now draw your attention to the ‘Speeler,’ or Gambler. | |
| Sporting Times 10 Apr. 3/3: I orders a toothful o’ rumbo, /And wishes the shpielers good luck. | |
| Bulletin (Sydney) 15 Oct. 14/1: In common decency our bookmakers and ‘spielers’ should roll up in force and heartily welcome the Marquis of Drogheda, who is coming to us by the Clyde. | |
| On the Wallaby 254: The racing code is lax [...] we met men who made it their sole business [...] to tramp the bush with a likely animal, practically living on what he earned them, either by winning, or what is technically termed, ‘running stiff.’ These men are called Forties, otherwise Spielers or Blacklegs. | |
| Pink ’Un and Pelican 198: In less than twenty minutes they’d skinned ‘The Lout,’ who, after all, was more of a bonnet than a spieler. | |
| ‘The Wayback Family’ in Sun. Times (Sydney) 16 Dec. 5/1: ‘Sydney’s full of spielers, and you’ve got to sleep with both eyes open, or get your eye teeth drawn’. | |
| Little Falls Herald (MN) 31 Mar. 3/3: [of the operator of a shell game under shell n.] How to Operate the Shell Game with Profit [...] If the spieler should happen to fumble the pill while the dough is up, it is best to cop and blow at once. | |
| Lone Hand (Sydney) Oct. 635/1: A collection of spieler’s tools was exhibited on the table. Double-headed and double-tailed pennies, box kips for two up [etc]. | |
| Sporting Times 4 July 1/3: We comes to a spieler workin’ the walnut an’ the pea. | |
| Mirror (Sydney) 31 Aug. 8/1: Hazards or dice, two up, and several well-known card games afford the spieler who knows his game wonderful opportunities to make easy money. | |
| ‘The Knight’s Return’ in Chisholm (1951) 85: ’E grabs ’is bag, an’ views me battered dile / With sudden fears uv spielers an’ their larks. | |
| Sheepmates 172: He’s a dirty ‘come-on’ for that speelerin’ Fritz [...] I fell for it, and Fritz wipes me down for two quid. On’y a dirty bloody speeler, and all yous mugs crawlin’ to ’im. | |
| Thieves Slang ms list from District Police Training Centre, Ryton-on-Dunsmore, Warwicks 10: Spealer [sic]: Card player. | |
| Fabulous Clipjoint (1949) 119: Hoagy’s a sex spieler. | |
| I Travelled a Lonely Land (1957) 239/2: speeler (spieler) – [...] a card shark or a crook. | |
![[NZ]](/static/img/flags/nz.png "New Zealand") | Shiner Slattery 170: He knew the type. Not swaggers looking for work. City spielers, magsmen. | |
| Great Aust. Gamble 151: [C]ampbell Street, Surry Hills, was crowded with its usual clientele of spielers, gamblers, spivs, ‘jazz babies’ and general crooks. | |
| Garden of Sand (1981) 126: I’m a low-pressure spieler and a four-square dealer was his brag. | |
| Dict. of Kiwi Sl. 32/2: cross-eyed spieler a glib or crafty fellow, encountered in Frank S. Anthony’s Me and Gus, could be originally from Australia, c.1905; from Yiddish ‘spiel’, to play, used generally in English to mean sales patter or swindling, usually at cards. | |
| Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. [as cit. 1988]. |
2. attrib. use of sense 1.
| ‘Jones’s Alley’ in Roderick (1972) 39: I got sick of my step-father waitin’ outside for me on pay-day, with a dirty, drunken spieler pal of his waitin’ round the corner. | |
| Riverina Recorder (Moulamein, NSW) 1 Jan. 2/6: The spieler element was conspicuous by its absence. | |
| ‘The Faltering Knight’ in Chisholm (1951) 72: An’ when I ’ear she’s like to come to ’arm / Amongst a push uv naughty spieler men, / I gets the wind up. |
3. (Aus.) a bookmaker.
| Bulletin (Sydney) 25 Apr. 10/3: When the settling day arrived, the stumped spieler made some scriptural allusion to the fact that it was impossible to get blood out of a stone, upon which the disgusted backers of the winners remarked that although Bible quotations were good enough for the little heathen, they weren’t worth a condemned cent to them. | |
| Sun. Times (Perth) 1 June 4/6: He found [...] a gang of shifty spielers. |
4. (Aus./US) a fluent talker; a plausible, ‘sharp’ individual.
| Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 23 Oct. 14/2: Talk about your speelers. Mike Shine takes the cake. As usual he had his little dog with him. | |
| ‘Chimmie Fadden Recognises...Some Old Friends’ 5 Feb. [synd. col.] [She is] one of the best spielers dat ever happened. | |
| Such is Life 25: My ’pinion, he’s a spieler. | |
| Inter Ocean (Chicago) 25 Jan. 34/2: [An] ex-Congressman touched me for $20 [...] a smooth spieler. | |
| Main Street (1921) 285: You’re a fair spieler, child. | |
| Man About Harlem 18 Apr. [synd. col.] [A] fine dinner breezed in and started to gumbeat [...] This streamlined beauty can spiel with the best stratosphere spielers. | |
| 24 Jan. [synd. col.] Morey Amsterdam, who’s a Broadway, Hollywood and Frisco spieler. | |
| World’s Toughest Prison 819: spieler – A ‘grinder’ or ballyhoo man. | |
| After Hours 61: If they didn’t have a spieler with balls like Kleinfeld around. | |
| et al. Working Lives 57: I wouldn’t even risk cashing her with you mob of spielers around. | |
| Lingo 2: Although mostly taken for granted, the importance of the vernacular in everyday life is apparent from the number of Lingoisms describing or referring to it [...] spieler; chiack; barrack; sledge; spitting chips, magging. |
5. (Aus. Und.) a pickpocket.
| Truth (Sydney) 15 Apr. 1/6: One of the shining lights of the W.C.T.U. had her pcket picked recently. When the professional gentleman who had opened her purse opened it, he found it with tracts [...] spielers have since passed a resolution deciding to let Temperance folk severely alone. |
6. a shop tout or fairground stall-holder.
 | S.F. Midwinter Appeal 19 May 15/1: Some spielers for the Midway who attempted to lick the Camp gate keeper were sent up for 24 hours [DA]. | |
| A. Mutt in Blackbeard Compilation (1977) 45: Upon hearing Beany’s great speech [he] immediately forwarded a contract [...] offering him a position as a spieler for a nickelodeon. | |
| ‘Butterfly Boggs: Pitcher’ in Lucky Seventh (2004) 248: ‘Step right up, men!’ yelled a spieler. | |
| Capt. Billy’s Whiz Bang Oct. 28: No more will the gossip-hungry tourists be fed on the scandal of the movie colony from a megaphone in the hands of a husky-voiced ‘spieler’. | |
| Penny Showman 8: Telling the tale, etc, by the Speiler, or Doorsman, generally a man with a voice like that of a roaring lion. | |
| People, Yes 80: They enjoy the oily slant-eyed spieler with his slick bazoo selling tickets and gabbing. | |
| On Broadway 17 Apr. [synd. col.] The artist, usually a femme from the Paris spots, carries a spieler to build up the entrance . | |
| ‘Influence of Amer. Sl. on Aus.’ in AS XVIII:4 255: A spieler to Americans (we call him a spruiker) does the talking outside a sideshow to rally patronage; to Australians the spieler is a crook or gambler. | |
| No Hiding Place! 192/1: Spieler. [A] barker. | |
| From Here to Eternity (1998) 332: The spielers hired for a buck an hour called unceasingly like cicus barkers from before each shed to ‘Come inside, boys’. | |
| Baron’s Court All Change (2011) 91: The spieler at a side-show, up on a rostrum, introducing the performers. | |
| White Shoes 32: Asian spielers jumped out of jewellery shop doors at the Japanese tourists. | |
| Where Dead Voices Gather (ms.) 213: Keith and Albee had similar backgrounds as circus grifters and sideshow spielers. | |
| ‘Carny Lingo’ in http://goodmagic.com 🌐 After the ‘turn’ the bally talker might [...] even hand the microphone to a ‘spieler’ or ‘grind man’ who would, as they say, ‘grind’: continue the sense of urgency. |
7. a persuasive talker, e.g. an evangelical preacher.
| Philosophy of Johnny the Gent 60: ‘You’d ought to heard the squawk! It’d make the beef of one o’ them [...] political spielers sound like a mother’s lullaby’. | |
| ‘The bards Who Lived at Manly’ in Roderick (1967–9) II 167: The camp of high-class spielers, / Who sneered in summer dress. | |
| Gay-cat 186: Yuh was allus lissenin’ with open mouth to them soap-box spielers, an’ then comin’ blabbin’ back ter me about Indoostrial Freedom. | |
| (con. 1910s) Elmer Gantry 255: Not a bad spieler, that woman. Puts it all over this guy Reverend Golding up-town. | |
| Sun (N.Y.) 19 Feb. 28/1: Real estate developers use the ‘lunch and lecture’ system, carrying the prospects by bus or train to the property, feeding them and subjecting them to a talk by a ‘spieler’. | |
| (con. 1936–46) Winged Seeds (1984) 106: I don’t blame the workers for [...] letting themselves be pushed around by religious bigots and political spielers. | |
![[Ire]](/static/img/flags/ire.png "Ireland") | Dublin Street Life and Lore 131: I’m a spieler. We ‘spiel’ them. Spieling means to get out and actually do it differently than just standing there selling,... to give a speech, a good line of speech. | |
| Empty Wigs (t/s) 251: [T]hat vulgar little spieler William Joyce. |
8. (US) a young, lower-class single woman, esp. as found frequenting dance-halls; also applied to male dancers.
| ‘The Spielers’ 🎵 They go to parties and soirees, and almost every ball; / You’re sure to find the ‘spielers’ there who take the shine of all. | |
| ‘College Words and Phrases’ in DN II:i 63: spieler n. Dancer. | |
| Autobiog. of a Thief 91: A section famous for the many shop girls who were fine spielers (dancers). | |
| Social Evil in N.Y. City 54: In all of these places the spieler is present. He is an expert dancer and is very popular because of this fact. He usually belongs to a gang or immoral class of young men, and his influence for the most part is bad. [...] The female spielers are nearly all immoral, and their influence upon the young men and girls is also bad. | |
| White Light Nights 19: A self-appointed ‘Mayor,’ [...] and his ‘skoit’ Nellie, the best ‘spieler’ in the dance halls. | |
| ‘Spielers’ in Sidewalks of America (1954) 563: While dancing in the mazy waltz the ‘spielers’ reign supreme. | |
| World’s Toughest Prison 819: spieler – [...] a fast, able dancer. | |
| (con. c.1900) City in Sl. (1995) 67: The dance itself was called the spiel and to do the dance was to spiel, whence the gerund spieling and the agentive form spieler. |
9. an illegal gambling club.
| Wide Boys Never Work (1938) 181: Mr. Rix, who owned thirteen spielers. | |
| Sharpe of the Flying Squad 333: speeler : Gaming-house. | |
| An Indiscreet Guide to Soho 94: Another type of club that is really ‘private’ is the ‘spieler’ or gambling joint. | |
| Und. Nights 41: Just then there steamed into the spieler a very friendly and amiable grafter by the name of Peter Gurney. | |
| in Bristol Eve. Post 27 Nov. in Norman’s London (1969) 43: First I got a job in a shpeiler, where I stayed for about a year. | |
| Fings I Prologue: The main set is the shpieler (gambling den) which is in a very bad state of repair. | |
| Crust on its Uppers 64: Mind you don’t drop too much loot [...] on them spielers of yours. | |
| Inside the Und. 49: I never enter a spieler south of the river without finding mutual acquaintances. | |
| Dead Butler Caper 30: I [...] fetched up at last outside a sleazy basement shpieler in Berwick Street. | |
| (con. c.1910) in Samuel East End Und. 119: It was about 1910 that we started on the Jewish spielers [...] When we raided a club, we were all armed. | |
| Indep. Rev. 13 July 8: Casino games or other gambling took place in ‘spielers’ back-room premises. | |
| Layer Cake 34: Getting a good hiding for wrecking some spieler. |
10. (US Und.) a corrupt lawyer.
| Argot: Dict. of Und. Sl. |
11. a street seller, e.g. of perfumes.
| (ref. to 1900s) Amer. Madam (1981) 149: The small rogue, he’s a dip (pickpocket) or a keister spieler (sidewalk salesman). | |
| Hazell and the Three-card Trick (1977) 11: There aren’t enough men in the force to grab all the spielers flogging junk in Oxford Street. | |
| Dublin Street Life and Lore 131: Then I decided to go into jewelry like Bimbo (another spieler). |
12. (Aus.) a fast horse.
| Popular Dict. Aus. Sl. | |
| I Travelled a Lonely Land (1957) 239/2: speeler (spieler) – a fast horse. |