dudder n.1
1. a criminal beggar who wanders the country, selling goods that have supposedly been smuggled through the customs; thus capitalizing on the greed and gullibility of their provincial customers. The clandestine style of their encounter with a customer gives the synon. whispering dudder.
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: Dudders, Fellows that sell Spital-fields Handkerchiefs for India ones. | ||
Discoveries (1774) 30: The Dudders; that is, Sellers of Handkerchiefs. [Ibid.] 34: Dudders [...] are a Set of People that resort to Fairs and Markets, under Pretence of being Smugglers, and selling nothing but prohibited Goods; at the same time they are ordinary Goods made in England. | ||
View of Society II 158: Sham Leggers. The Duff. Whispering Dudders. These are divided into several classes: some travel on horseback, and some on foot; some with carts and waggons, &c. They frequent the out-skirts of cities, large towns, markets, villages, and fairs. The goods they have for sale are damaged, which they get from on board ships or out of large manufactories; but tho’ damaged, they are generally of the newest fashions and neatest patterns. [...] They endeavour to make you believe that the goods they sell are smuggled, tho’ they were really manufactured in Spitalfields. | ||
Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue ms. additions n.p.: Dudder, or Whispering Dudder. Cheats who Travel the Country, pretending to sell Smuggled Goods & accost their intended Dupes in a whisper. The Goods they have for sale are Damaged; purchased by them out of large manufactories. | ||
Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue (3rd edn). | ||
Lex. Balatronicum. | ||
Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue. | ||
, | Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. | |
, , | Sl. Dict. | |
‘Career of a Scapegrace’ in Leicester Chron. 10 May 12/1: A ‘dudder,’ a type of travelling hawker now seldom seen, except in remote parts of the country — a knavish packman, who professed to go in fear of the excise man, and sold his cheap French silk handkerchiefs [...] for quadruple their real value. | ||
‘Whisper All Aussie Dict.’ in Kings Cross Whisper (Sydney) xxxiv 4/4: dudder: A seller of shoddy goods. A person selling legitimately purchased goods as being stolen property to make sales easier. | ||
Ridgey-Didge Oz Jack Lang 24: Dudder Seller of phoney goods. |
2. (Aus. Und.) one who sells fake narcotics.
Eve. News (Rockhampton, Qld) 27 May 3/1: A ‘dudder’ is a person who passes off some powder as cocaine or morphine. |