Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (orig. US) a tout.

[1912		Aberdeen Press & Jrnl 13 Jan. 5/5: German General Election [...] Numerous meetings were convened by the Socialists [...] and armies of schlepper, or whippers-in, mustered].
1946		S. Jackson Indiscreet Guide to Soho 43: The touts or schlappers seizing the arm of every woman and dragging her to see a ‘bargain you mustn’t miss’.
1978		F. Norman Dead Butler Caper 109: All yuh can say is yuh vont to buy a votch – yuh take me for a Oxford Street schlepper, already?

2. (orig. US) an insignificant person, a second-rater; thus schlepping, insignificant.

1947		S.J. Perelman Westward Ha! 13: ‘About time those schleppers went to work,’ he grunted.
1954		G. Marx letter 4 Aug. in Groucho Letters (1967) 50: Women always seem so much more joyous than men when another schlepper gets hooked.
1974		J. Lahr Hot to Trot 119: I was a horrible student, a schlepper.
1990		S. Morgan Homeboy 29: Those shleppers in Faria’s office might just as well hire skywriters.
1991		B. McCarthy Vice Cop 225: ‘I was supposed to be Tony’s driver. That was my cover. We just reversed our usual roles. Now, I was the schlepp. He wore the wire’.
1999		Guardian Rev. 20 Aug. 11: He went to the studio, this time not as the schlepping exec come to pay the bill but as, gulp, an artist!
2000		Guardian Rev. 11 Feb. 16: He’s more than just a hatchet-faced rock schlepper.

3. (US) a miserly person who wants something for nothing.

1977

D. Powis Signs of Crime 200: Schlepper Scrounger (Yiddish).