Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. the penis.

c.1760		‘The Rakes of Stony Batter’ in A. Carpenter Verse in Eng. in 18C Ireland (1998) 340: He gently laid her down, and he pull’d out his scraper, / He play’d her such a tune.
c.1800		‘The Rakes of Stony Batter’ in Holloway & Black I (1975) 224: He gently laid her down, and he pull’d out his scraper.

2. (also three-cornered scraper) a cocked hat [its shape].

1818		‘A. Burton’ Adventures of Johnny Newcome I 24: John in Uniform arrayed: Behold him! with his dirk and scraper, And new Coatee, as stiff as paper.
1826		W.N. Glascock Naval Sketchbk I 37: Admiral’s office — dowsed swabs* —ditto gold-laced scraper† [note] *Epaulets †Gold-laced cocked-hat.
1831		Navy at Home II 99: I say, Billybuffer, lend us your ‘scraper,’ who’ll lend me a coat.
1836		Lancaster Gaz. 12 Nov. 4/2: ‘No you honour,’ replied he to the officer, at the same time dowsing the remnants of a three-cornered scraper that had [...] been in the affray.
1858		Western Dly Press 9 Nov. 2/6: The prisoner threw a three-cornered scraper at her.
1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict. 255: THREE-CORNERED SCRAPER, a cocked hat.
1873		Sl. Dict.
1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.

3. (also chin-scraper) a barber.

1906		Sun. Times (Perth) 21 Oct. 1/1: A dandy hairdresser is particularly strong at making every post a winner [and] the society chin-scraper now dodges out the back window to evade the clerk of the scales.
1922		T.A. Dorgan in Zwilling TAD Lex. (1993) 71: Listening to the big baseball arguments at the local scrapers as you wait to be cut up and smothered.
1929		E. Dahlberg Bottom Dogs 32: I could be a piano teacher and not have to slave as a chin-scraper.
1930		‘Dean Stiff’ Milk and Honey Route 213: Scrapers’ schools – Barber college where students practice on hobos.
1937–84		Partridge DSUE (1984) 1024/1: from ca. 1790.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).

4. a foot, a shoe; always in phr. take to one’s scrapers

5. a razor.

1869		Public Opinion 19 June n.p.: The beard and moustache which the sailors in the Royal Navy will be permitted to wear, thereby doing away with the objection that blue-jackets have to the scraper [F&H].
1896		M. Williams Round London 24: ‘Scrapers, sir, scrapers?’ she cried in my ear.
1933		Ersine Und. and Prison Sl.

6. a cheating beggar, one who shams suffering.

1891

A. Day Mysterious Beggar 208: ‘Many of these people simulate – pretend to be suffering, when they are not.’ ‘You mean the bams; the scrapers?’.

7. see catgut-scraper under catgut n.¹