Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a verbose, effusive speaker; a preacher or lecturer.

1761		Nancy Dawson’s Jests 35: As to your old acquaintance the bawds and the whores / They behave pretty well – and pay duly their scores; / But as to your Spouters, and those kind of gentry, / On them and their actions I keep a strict sentry.
1772		Manchester Mercury 17 Mar. 4/2: First spouter, Mr Richards; second spouter, Mr Peters; third spouter, Mr Berry.
1782		V. Knox Essays CLII (1823) III 163: The judicious observer, pities and despises him as an unpricipled brawler [...] the mere rival of the noisy spouters at the Forum .
1795		Chester Chron. 3 July 3/2: A theatrical hot-bed, or the Spouter confounded.
1809		T. Pickering in M. Cutler’s Life (1888) II 317: The other spouters, implicitly confiding in their leaders, are but parrots repeating the notes proceeding from the palace [OED].
1817		‘Elegy Written in Spa-Fields’ in Morn. Post 13 Feb. 2/4: Now bursts the Bristol Spouter on the eye, / And all the most shout ingorant delight.
1821–6		‘Bill Truck’ Man o’ War’s Man (1843) 186: The monied interest of the ship, as the Ricardo spouters would phrase it.
1836		Bucks Herald 3 Sept. 2/1: It has been proposed to erect / A statue to each of the three / [...] / A spouter is famed Harry B,; / While Ady writes letters by dozens.
1842		T. Hood ‘University Feud’ Works (1862) V 417: And a pretty noise there is! – what with canvassers and spouters.
1842		Whip & Satirist of NY & Brooklyn (NY) 11 June n.p.: Some of the spouters about town talk of matrching Cris Lilly against Sullivan.
1859, 1860		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc.
1860		N.E. Police Gaz. (Boston, MA) 18 Aug. 8/1: Just drop the ‘spouter’ if you can / And sink the politician.
c.1865		‘The Stagestruck Chambermaid’ in Fred Shaw’s Champion Comic Melodist 58: [of an actress] The servants say I am first rate, / Since I became a Spouter.
1866		Sportsman 22 Sept. 2/1: Notes on News [...] [A] better work than letting noisy trades’ unions ‘all talk-and-no-d’” spouters get fat encouraging poor men to strike.
1879		‘’Arry on Niggers’ in Punch 15 Mar. 113/2: Comin’ ’ome I ’ob-nob’d with a bloke, bloomin’ Methody spouter I guess.
1882		Bristol Magpie 14 Sept. 6/1: We Hear [...] That a well-known Horsefair ‘spouter’ was taken down while discussing Christianity last week.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 24 Jan. 13/3: ‘Well, I am a policeman, the Lord’s policeman, and I don’t have to catch a man by the collar to arrest him; I can arrest him a quarter of a mile away; I can lift up my voice and chain him to the holy cause, without having recourse to any violence whatever.’ ‘Spouter, eh?’.
1894		Truth (Sydney) 17 June 3/2: Collapse of teetotal spouter amidst a roar of laughter.
1890		‘Doss Chiderdoss’ ‘The Barred Bard’ Sporting Times 8 Feb. 1/2: At last he came to the terrible pass / Of joining a temperance spouter’s class.
1906		Sun. Times (Perth) 28 Jan. 1/1: The subsidised spouters [i.e. politicians] are persuading the Sou’-West cockies to go on the land.
1906		E. Hubbard Love, Life and Work 🌐 Chapman and McIntyre represent the modern types of Phariseeism – spielers and spouters for churchianity.
1910		‘Doss Chiderdoss’ ‘Longevity Jujubes’ Sporting Times 23 July 1/3: ‘What’s the good of Longevity Jujubes?’ / Growled old Bink, the bar spouter, with heat.
1924		G. Henderson Keys to Crookdom 418: Spouter. Loud-mouthed fellow.
1950		Goldin et al. DAUL 204/1: Spouter. A lawyer, especially one in criminal practice.

2. (Aus.) spec. a ‘soap-box’ orator.

1852		G.C. Mundy Our Antipodes III 127: The platform spouters, indeed, did their best to wind up the passions of their hearers.
1878		‘’Arry to the Front!’ in Punch 9 Mar. 100/2: A spouter turns off at the mains when his tater-trap’s bunged with a brick.
1891		‘’Arry on a ’ouseboat’ in Punch 15 Aug. 76: Rum blokes, these here Sosherlist spouters!
1903		Bulletin (Sydney) 3 Dec. 13/3: The new regulation in connection with the right of speech in Sydney Domain, by which ‘spouters’ will have to obtain the permission of the police before they can ‘spout,’ is likely to provoke some unpleasantness.
1914		Sport (Adelaide) 27 Feb. 6/1: Jack L„ the coming spouter. was seen taking a married woman up to Trent’s.

3. (US) a tout for a sideshow or similar attraction.

1899

E. Townshend ‘Chimmie Fadden Recognises...Some Old Friends’ 5 Feb. [synd. col.] I knowed de spouter, de mug what gives de talk on de freaks, and igives him a wink.