Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a congenital pessimist.

1637		Bastwick Litany I 20: A malignant and corrupt lineage and brood of Crokers .
1771		Franklin Memoirs (1840) I 24/1: There are croakers in every country, always boding its ruin .
c.1786		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue ms. additions n.p.: Croaker. One who is always foretelling some Accident or Misfortune: an Allusion to the Croaking of the Raven, supposed ominous.
1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue (2nd, 3rd edn) n.p.:
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		‘Jon Bee’ Dict. of the Turf, the Ring, the Chase, etc. 59: Croaker — one who never abstracts himself from the ills of life, and conjures up imaginary ones.
1840		R.B. Peake Devil In London II ii: Curse that old croaker.
1845		Disraeli Sybil Bk IV 7: Sloane always was a croaker.
1845		Bell’s Life in Sydney 15 Nov. 2/3: [heasdline] Supply of Labour for the Croakers.
1855		C. Kingsley Westward Ho III 297: Spoil sports! The father of all manners of troubles on earth, be they noxious trade of croakers!
1862		in R.G. Carter Four Brothers in Blue (1978) 28 Dec. 215: It would hush forever those vile home croakers who ‘knew it would be so’.
1871		E.K. Wood Dene Hollow I 209: ‘How’s she?’ ‘She? Well, I’d not like to be a croaker, Squire Arde, but I’m afraid we shan’t have her long among us.’.
1878		Tamworth Herald 12 Oct. 4/6: Cropakers. Of what use to society [...] are those people who persist in looking upon the dark side of things?
1880		Bulletin (Sydney) 17 July 9/4: Though a few ‘croakers’ prophesied a failure, the result was a most brilliant success, financially and otherwise.
1885		Shields Dly Gaz. 5 Mar. 2/5: Croakers [...] pull a long face, give a series of portentous sighs, and solm,enly deliver themselves of the cant that never [...] was England so sore bestead as now.
1893		Columbian (Bloomsbury, PA) 25 Aug. 4/5: A man whose every look proclaimed him a chronic croaker.
1896		M. Williams Round London 21: Those croakers who say you cannot grow flowers in towns can never have seen Hyde Park in June.
1906		H. Lawson ‘The Stranded Ship’ in Roderick (1967–9 II) 179: And the croakers say, when a man is down, with a shrug and a know-all glance, / O he’ll never get out of the gutter again, he has done with every chance.
1931		O. Strange Law O’ The Lariat 107: Now come an’ drown yore sorrows, yu old croaker.
1934		Yorks. Eve. Post 10 Mar. 8/5: The Croakers. Cricket pessimists are already beginnning to talk as though the Test matches against Australuia were half lost .

2. a whiner or whinger.

1820		B.H. Smart Practice of Elocution 142: Croaker. Indeed what signifies what weather have in a country like ours. Taxes, rising, trade falling [...] Frenchmen swarming into it to eat us up and pervert our morals and relgion.
1823		J.F. Cooper Pilot (1824) III 243: Away with ye, old croaker!
1843–44		Dickens Martin Chuzzlewit (1995) 650: ‘Presence of mind, you old croaker, presence of mind!’ cried Jonas with a harsh, loud laugh.
1858		Broadway Belle (NY) 6 Nov. n.p.: Croakers may blow as much as they please about ‘hard times’ and all that sort of thing.
1859, 1860		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc.
1880		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 3 Jan. 14/3: [headline] THE TEMPERANCE CROAKERS [...] [T]otal abstinence papers may shriek annually in cold water articles [etc].
1887		W.S. Gilbert ‘The Discontented Sugar Broker’ Fifty ‘Bab’ Ballads 86: I hate to preach – I hate to prate – / I’m no fanatic croaker.
1882		Sydney Sl. Dict. (2 edn) 3: Croakers - Timid and grumbling persons.
1896		S. Crane in N.Y. Journal 25 Oct. in Stallman (1966) 163: The old croakers on the corners are men who have mistaken the departure of their own youth for the death of the Tenderloin.
1904		G.B. Shaw John Bull’s Other Island Act III: Come on, you old croaker! I’ll shew you how to win an Irish seat.
1914		Bulletin (Sydney) 19 Nov. 11/4: Croakers to the contrary, the old kindly feeling between master and man still retains the spark of vitality.
1924		G.H. Lawson Dict. of Aus. Words And Terms 🌐 CROAKER – A complainer.
1930		S. Henry Conquering Our Great Amer. Plains 221: These voluble doubters are commonly called old croakers, backbiters, ‘bellyachers.’.
1960		H.E. Bates When the Green Woods Laugh (1985) 282: You stand there, you croaker, and tell me it’s going to be heated?

3. (US) one who talks too lengthily and too loudly.

1832		Satirist (London) 17 June 197/2: But ’twas too plain, of froth and air / The little thing was full, Sir / [...] / So on that day was not received / One of the tribe of Croakers.
1845		Satirist & Punch (Boston, MA) 1 Feb. 59/2: One of those croakers [...] who plays the deacon ‘in our church’.
1912		R.W. Brown ‘Word-List From Western Indiana’ in DN III:viii 547: croaker, n. One who talks loudly and too much.
1943		B. DeVoto Year of Decision 310: They had become resentful of croakers, called him a Puke, and moved on [DA].

4. a beggar.

1839		H. Brandon Dict. of the Flash or Cant Lang. 162/2: Croakers – beggars.
1859, 1860		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc.
1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1873		Sl. Dict.
1882		Sydney Sl. Dict. (2 edn) 3: Croakers - Beggars.

5. (US) one who backs out of undertakings they have promised to perform.

1865		letter q. in Wiley Life of Johnny Reb (1943) 148: I have a profound contempt for all men croakers who are hunting easy places a home to avoid the dangers of the battlefield.
1905		‘Central Connecticut Word-List’ in DN III:i 7: croaker, n. [...] one who backs out of an undertaking.

6. an informer.

1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn) 62: croaker [...] a stool pigeon.
1989		J. Morton Lowspeak.