Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (also duffor) a crooked salesman who pretends to deal in smuggled goods but whose stock is actually cheap, mass-produced items, sold at a substantial mark-up, and who targets especially provincials up in London, mainly from a site at St Clement’s Church in the Strand.

1747		Life and Character of Moll King 12: harry: But who had you in your Ken last Darkee? moll: We had your Dudders and your Duffers, Files, Buffers, and Slangers. [Ibid.] 24: Duffers, Those who sell British Spirituous Liquors for Foreign.
1756		W. Toldervy Hist. of the Two Orphans III 61: These two fellows [...] are after being duffers, or some other such thieves!
1770		R. King Frauds of London 18: Duffers. These are a set of men that prey on the credulity of the unsuspecting [...] plying at the corner of streets, and courts, and alleys to vend their contraband wares.
1785		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: Duffers, cheats who ply in different parts of the town, particularly about Water-lane, opposite St Clement’s Church in the Strand, and pretend to deal in smuggled goods, stopping all country people, or such as they think they can impose on [...] selling them Spital-fields goods at double their current price.
1795		A Fortnight’s Ramble through London 20: The duffer cheats me — the money droppers defraud me of nine guineas.
1808		G. Andrewes A Stranger’s Guide or Frauds of London 5: Duffers [...] plying at the corners of the streets, courts, and alleys, to vend their contraband wares.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1818		W. Perry London Guide 2: Fellows who hang about in inn yards [...] selling and buying some article [are] called ‘Duffors or Buffors’.
1826		Pierce Egan’s Life in London 19 Nov. 758/2: ‘Your Worship, he’s a duffer—a well-known duffer! [...] and here are some sham gold chains and seals I found upon him’.
1828		G. Smeeton Doings in London 24: A notorious duffer, Simon Solomon, a celebrated seller of mock jewellry.
1831		Satirist (London) 21 Aug. 158/1: Robert Bond [...] was known as a ‘duffer;’ that is, one who sells articles by fraud.
1843–44		Dickens Martin Chuzzlewit (1995) 578: Nor did it mark him out as the prey of ring-droppers, pea and thimble-riggers, duffers, touters, or any of those bloodless sharpers, who are, perhaps, a little better known to the Police.
1859		Matsell Vocabulum 28: duffer A fellow, in the dress of a sailor, who knocks at the basement door, and inquires if the lady of the house does not want to buy some smuggled goods, and then exhibits imitation silks, satins, Irish linens, etc., etc., which he pretends to have run ashore without the knowledge of the custom-house officers.
1868		‘Six Years in the Prisons of England’ in Temple Bar Mag. Nov. 537: These ‘shallow-blokes’ turn ‘duffers’ sometimes. They get some ‘duffing’ silk handkerchiefs and cigars and go about selling them for smuggled goods.
1873		Sl. Dict.
1884		A. Griffiths Chronicles of Newgate 326: The ‘duffer’ went from door to door [...] offering for sale smuggled tobacco, muslins, or other stuffs, and, if occasion served, passing forged notes or bad money as small change.
1885		Aus. Town and Country Jrnl 12 Dec. 34/1: A ‘duffer’ was one who offered inferior goods to the unwary, under the pretence that they were smuggled.
1895		Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 26: Duffer, a hawker of Brummagem jewellery.

2. a hawker or pedlar.

1735		Proceedings Old Bailey 11 Sept. 144/2: No, there is another Charles Hooper : But says the other, it was one Charles Hooper a Duffer.
1838		Crim.-Con. Gaz. 1 Sept. 24/3: We next find him selling [...] pencils and sealing-wax, and travelling the country as a duffer.
1861		(con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor IV 301/2: He [...] was a ‘duffer’, very unprincipled in his dealings. He sold cutlery, books, stationery, and hardware.
1874		J. Greenwood Wilds of London (1881) 286: There were two of the gentry known to policemen as ‘duffers,’ each mounted on a stand, and plying his trade of humbugging the shillings out of the pockets of the milksops about him by sleight-of-hand trickery.
1956		R.T. Hopkins Banker Tells All 127: ‘Duffer’ is the gypsy word for a hawker of cheap jewellery but in up-to-date underworld slang the word is used for a jewel faker and forger.

3. a petty swindler.

1823		Age (London) 15 May 7/3: A notorious duffer, named Joseph Wren, was charged with defrauding a young countryman of 5l.
1841		‘F.L.G.’ Swell’s Night Guide K: Duffers Petty Swindlers.
1850		E.V. Kenealy Goethe: a New Pantomime in Poetical Works 2 (1878) 336: Costard, Couple-beggar, Duffer, / You look handsome in your dumps.
1858		Bell’s Life in Sydney 22 May 3/6: A brazen-faced, brandy-nosed woman of ill fame, named Katey Delookery, and a ‘duffer’ named Samivel Harris, were charged as accessories.
1859		W. Kelly Life in Victoria I 59: You’ll not come that game over me, your pair of bloody duffers. Come, pay your money, and then go to h—, if you like.
1867		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 12 Oct. n.p.: He won’t look at any second rate ‘duffer’ that he used to ‘work’ with in former years.
1877		J. Greenwood Dick Temple II 246: I have been stigmatised a sham, a humbug, a duffer.
1883		G.W. Peck Peck’s Bad Boy and His Pa (1887) 59: That’s the old duffer that sold me the bottle of brandy peaches at Chickamauga, for three dollars, and they eat a hole through my stummick.
1892		Lippincott’s Monthly Mag. (Phila.) Oct. 500: He’d lick the duffer as used Hank ill [F&H].
1894		Mirror of Life 31 Mar. 7/3: [US speaker] ‘Oh, h—l, that is a put up job, that duffer ain't dead’.
1901		J. Flynt World of Graft 134: Do you believe that that is what those duffers are doing?

4. a counterfeit coin or article; any spurious article.

1859, 1860		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc.
1861		(con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor I 423/2: He wears a stunning fawny (ring) on his finger, and out-and-out watch and guard, and not a duffer either – no gammon.
1864		Derby Day 93: The cigars he offered you [...] were, in the language of the race-course, ‘duffers’.
1867		Sportsman 16 Mar. 2/1: Notes on News [...] Smashers are abroad. Base coin, from threepenny to crown pieces, is in circulation in country districts [...] these thickly-electroplated ‘duffers’ are [...] hard to tell from the real article.
1870		Wkly Times (Sydney) 3 Dec. 4/2: These experienced gentlemen, however, were not quite so green as the parish clerk, and after examining the coins, and discovering them to be ‘duffers,’ left them strewed along the matting.
1877		Five Years’ Penal Servitude 264: I palmed his sovs into my pocket, and gave him five duffers in their place.
1880		W. Hooe Sharping London 35: Duffer, a sham or spurious article.
1882		Dundee Courier (Scot.) 8 Sept. 7/4: I produced the sovereign. He took it, rung it, weighed it on his palm, and finally declared it was a duffer.
1895		J. Greenwood Behind A Bus 136: A more flagrant ‘duffer’ in shape of a half-sovereign was never tendered that that.
1907		D. Stewart Shadows of the Night in Illus. Police News 19 Oct. 12/1: ‘The notes you so kindly handed to me were duffers — were snide ones’.

5. an inferior prostitute.

1865

Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 108/2: Ned being an inveterate ‘lushington,’ and oftener to be found at the bar of the public house than at the ‘prat’ of the ‘judy’ he was carrying the stick for, soon got ‘turned up’ by the A. 1. No. 1’s, and necessarily became a trudger in the rear of a third-rate ‘duffer’.

6. (UK und.) a part-time or ‘hobbyist’ thief, who only practices when the fancy occasionally takes him.

1872

E. Crapsey Nether Side of NY 185: [A] ‘duffer,’ by which name the police mean one who, following some honest pursuit during the day, occasionally sallies forth at night to commit a house robbery.

7. (Aus.) a cattle-stealer.

1877		Queenslander (Brisbane) 10 Mar. 21/1: The sun-downer, the house-polanter, the brand faker, and the duffer, the cattle killer, the cattle thief and the sheep-stealer would disquiet us.
1888		Camperdown Chron. (Vic.) 19 Jan. 4/3: A notorious cattle duffer was run to earth [...] The duffer, having no money, gave the solicitor a fine grey horse as his fee.
1891		H. Lawson ‘Mary Lemaine’ in Roderick (1967–9) I 120: Jim Duff was a ‘native’ as wild as he could be; / A stealer and duffer of cattle was he.
1906		New Boys’ World 29 Dec. 97: Both Bryan and the ‘cattle duffer,’ as cattle robbers were called, were eased of their handcuffs.
1910		Bulletin (Sydney) 11 Aug. 13/4: Both Duffers. / The Jackeroo: ‘Ye know, I’m an awful duffer with cattle, always making mistakes and taking the wrong beast.’ / Cattle Duffer: ‘That’s just what they say about me, boss. Straight, I couldn’t swear to ye now that these cattle I’ve got here is me own.’.
1936		(con. 1830s–60s) ‘Miles Franklin’ All That Swagger 118: Delacy instructed him to keep his eyes open for evidence of any cattle or horse duffers in his direction.
1950		‘Neville Shute’ Town Like Alice 263: ‘What’s a duffer, Joe?’ ‘Why, cattle-duffers – cattle thieves.’.
1963		A.E. Farrell Vengeance 74: That’s where [...] Billy first spotted the duffers at work.
1967		‘Whisper All Aussie Dict.’ in Kings Cross Whisper (Sydney) xxxiv 4/4: duffer: A livestock thief, usually cattle.
1974		P. Adam-Smith Barcoo Salute 69: Banjo Paterson once wrote a pungent verse imploring the Almighty to ‘keep the cockies off the Ord’ and the poddy dodgers and duffers out of the Kimberleys.
1990		Tupper & Wortley Aus. Prison Sl. Gloss. 🌐 Duffer. A cattle thief.

8. (US) a liar, a trickster; a general pej.

1870		D. Kirwan Palace & Hovel 58: I say, ye pair of duffers, give us tuppence to get a pot o’ beer.
1873		Sl. Dict. 152: Duffer [...] It is now general in its application to a worthless fellow.
1880		Bulletin (Sydney) 13 Mar. 4/1: Clear out of the coal lands, and exclaim, ‘Now, though a political duffer, I’m Honest John Sutherland.’.
1882		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 1 Apr. 2/3: It is melancholy to see a lot of profane ‘duffers’ changing their occupation from clustering around their beer to gathering about a friend’s bier.
1894		G.A. Sala Things I Have Seen I 57: The other [eye] was and still remains a ‘duffer,’ wandering about on its own account and persistently refusing to do any tangible work.
1901		Monroe & Northup ‘College Words and Phrases’ in DN II:iii 139: duffer, n. A boaster.
1904		Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 3/2 6/3: [I]t is wonderful how such duffers and cocktails ever get into the game.
1906		S. Ford Shorty McCabe 57: One big duffer, with rings in his ears and a fine assortment of second-hand pepper-boxes in his sash.
1925		D. Hammett ‘Dead Yellow Women’ Story Omnibus (1966) 167: ‘Does one ask the way of a blind man?’ the old duffer asked.