Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. something that overwhelms or overpowers.

1841		Dickens Old Curiosity Shop (1999) 377: It’s Destiny, and mine’s a crusher!
1849		Thackeray Pendennis I 38: She is a crusher, ain’t she now?
1850		‘Epistle from Joe Muggins’s Dog’ in Era (London) 11 Aug. 4/1: True, ther Kup day was a krussher, but wat of that.
1857		Bell’s Life in Victoria (Melbourne) 2 May 4/1: [of a blow] Jim fell heavily on the ropes from a crusher on the jaw.
1869		‘Mark Twain’ Innocents Abroad 26: I state frankly that I was all unprepared for this crusher.
1877		W.S. Gilbert Engaged in London Assurance and other Victorian Comedies (2001) Act III: This blow is indeed a crusher. Against such a blow I cannot stand up! (Faints).
1890		‘Rolf Boldrewood’ Colonial Reformer III 4: A real crusher of a dry season.
1896		‘’Arry on Blues and Bluestockings’ in Punch 21 Mar. 135/1: A good manly crusher [...] whilst woman is under our ’eel, / Will save us a dollop o’ trouble.
1906		A.H. Lewis Confessions of a Detective 53: As it fell out I caught the second blow — a crusher, too! — on my arm.
1906		S. Ford Shorty McCabe 179: Say! he was dressed to the minute, from the pink in his buttonhole, to the mother-of-pearl gloves [...] Oh, he was a crusher, sure!
1955		Piersall & Hirshberg Fear Strikes Out 97: And now here’s the fourth step, the crusher—Boudreau, the new manager, announcing that he’s going to shift me to shortstop.
1978		R. Charles Brother Ray 238: The physical [heroin] addiction is something you can put behind you in ninety-six hours. But the psychological addiction is the real crusher; that’s the bitch.

2. (also crush, crush-man) a police officer.

1835		Sessions Papers Aug. 643: ‘Here are two crushers.’ [...] I looked out of the window, and saw both the policemen.
1835		Worcester Herald 26 Dec. 4/3: A crush man, a police officer.
1835		Worcester Herald 26 Dec. 4/3: Namas, run away; namas, give the crush a sicer down the back slums, run to give the officer the slip down the back streets.
1846		Swell’s Night Guide 68: She touched a cully of his skin and ticker; and went whacks in crib-cracking; and she vos pinched by the crushers.
1851		Cardiff and Merthyr Guardian 8 Mar. 4/4: ‘Cut rockin, pipe the crush.’ That meant, ‘Don’t talk, mind the policeman’ .
1857		Bell’s Life in Victoria (Melbourne) 4 July 4/3: I’m at liberty now to thieve / And the crushers can’t meddle with me.
1859		G.A. Sala Twice Round the Clock 215: A ‘crusher,’ or policeman, there is indeed.
1860		Bell’s Life in Sydney 24 Nov. 3/1: He also submitted that he was illegally in custody, having been apprehended by: Mr Sabor, and not by ‘a legitimate crusher’.
1861		(con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor I 16/1: The lads endeavour to take the unsuspecting ‘crusher’ by surprise, and often crouch at the entrance of a court until a policeman passes.
1877		Five Years’ Penal Servitude 223: The blooming crushers were precious glad when they ‘pinched’ ’im.
1881		Bulletin (Sydney) 16 Apr. 9/2: The landlord discovered through the medium of the ‘crushers’ that he had taken the greater part of his pewter pots [...] in bad two shilling pieces.
1887		W.S. Gilbert ‘Peter the Wag’ Fifty ‘Bab’ Ballads 129: One day that Crusher lost his way / Near Poland Street, Soho.
1894		(con. 1835) G.A. Sala Things I Have Seen II 110: The ‘force’ [...] were contumeliously halloaed at by small boys [...] as ‘bobbies,’ ‘peelers,’ and ‘crushers.’.
1895		Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 21: Crusher, a policeman.
1901		Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 16 Oct. 2/7: One day, too, there cums a Crusher / Knockin’ at that nabour’s dore.
1909		J. Ware Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era 100/2: Crusher (Peoples’). A policeman – evidently a word suggesting respect for the force.
1910		Truth (Perth) 26 Nov. 8/8: Now as Wade and all his crushers / They have taken a back seat, / Maybe we'll have legislation / What will give us bread and mea.
1925		‘Bartimeus’ ‘The Crusher’ in Great Security 140: The Naval Police [...] earned from the Lower Deck the derisive sobriquet of ‘Cockroach Crushers’ [...] they are still known as ‘Crushers’.
1926		Eve. Herald (Dublin) 8 Sept. 6/1: In Gilbert’s Derby Day ballad ‘Emily John James and I,’ John, the ‘Constable Poorly Paid’ was described as ‘The Crusher’ — possibly derived from the devastating effect of his feet upon coleoptera.
1931		Irwin Amer. Tramp and Und. Sl. 58: Crusher. – A policeman, first so called when some luckless prisoner or vagrant was badly beaten by his captor.
1931		Framlingham Eve. News 24 Oct. 2: Slang terms which have been applied to the police are ‘cossacks,’ [...] ‘frogs’, ‘blue-bottles,’ and ‘crushers’. Have we not heard constables’ boots described as ‘beetle-crushers’.
[1944		P. Kendall Dict. Service Sl. n.p.: crushers . . . petty officers who rebuke one for disciplinary infractions].
1977		‘John le Carré’ Honourable Schoolboy 367: The ‘crew only’ door was guarded by a pair of very serious crushers.
1984		(con. WW2) T. Jones Heart of Oak [ebook] You get yourself over to the Chief Crusher’s Office [Police Office] as fast as you bloody can.
1989		J. Morton Lowspeak.

3. a negative critic.

1890

Music Hall & Theatre Rev. 26 Apr. 7/1: A sporting contemporary indulges in some very queer comment anent some of our popular artistes [...] The would-be crusher should try to work up a little memory.

4. (Aus.) a boor, a predator.

1914

Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 13 May 3/2: Nearly every bloke’s a Crusher, / Every female are a nark. / [...] / Londoners live on each other / Like the cannibals they are.

5. (Can.) a thug.

1931–4		D. Clemmer Prison Community (1940) 331/2: crusher, n. A broad-shouldered and weak-minded thief.
1978		R. Caron Go-Boy! 255: A local tough who thought of himself as a killer and a crusher.

6. see crumb-crusher under crumb n.¹

7. see crush n.³