Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. lit. or fig., anything conspicuously large; a strong blow [SE pelt, to beat violently].

1862		in R.G. Carter Four Brothers in Blue (1978) 17 Aug. 79: Bob gave him a pelter that knocked him down.
1890		‘’Arry on [...] the Glorious Twelfth’ in Punch 30 Aug. 97/2: There ain’t nothink the nobs is fair nuts on but wot the ere bellerers ban. / Wy, they’re down upon Sport, now, a pelter. Preposterous, ain’t it.

2. (also pelterer) a drenching downpour [SE pelt, to beat violently].

1840		R. Barham ‘The Dead Drummer’ in Ingoldsby Legends (1842) 197: The lightning kept flashing, the rain too kept pouring [...] what I have heard term’d, ‘a regular pelter’.
1887		Religious Herald 24 Mar. n.p.: Presently, another shower came... She shrugged up her shoulders and shut her eyes during the pelter [F&H].
1899–1900		(?) H. Lawson ‘New Year’s Night’ in Roderick (1972) 341: Wasn’t it a pelterer, mother?
1918		Boy’s Own Paper XL:5 274: This storm caught me. My word it is a pelter!

3. (US) a ‘fast’, immoral individual; usu. a prostitute.

1853		Life in Boston & N.Y. (Boston, MA) 8 Oct. n.p.: What were those youngsters [...] doing with those ‘pelters’ [...] and who was it she said said were her two lovers?
1856		Life in Boston & N.Y. (Boston, MA) 23 Aug. n.p.: That old New York pelter, known by the name of ‘Dido’.
1861		N.E. Police Gaz. (Boston, MA) 5 Oct. 4/4: Liz Burgess, the Irish pelter, who lives with Marm Lane.

4. a horse, esp. a slow, old one [ironic use of SE pelt (along) or 16C pelter, a paltry or peddling person].

1856		Knickerbocker (N.Y.) XLVIII 314: When his earthly tenement yields his soul no shelter, May it animate the corpse of an ancient pelter [DA].
1874		Billings’ Farmer’s Allminax 18: Porky Billings [...] always had on hand an old flag-tailed pelter, with a glass eye, tew trade with ennyboddy [DA].
1896		Ade Artie 4: It’s like hitchin’ up a four-time winner ’longside of a pelter.
1902		Ade Forty Modern Fables 114: They would go around Mr. Man and his dun Pelter as if the latter had been hitched.
1914		Ade ‘The New Fable of Susan and the Daughter’ in Ade’s Fables 214: Relatives of the Young Couple staked them to a team of Pelters, a Muley Cow, a Bird Dog of dubious Ancestry, an Axe and a Skillet.
1938		D. Runyon ‘Princess O’Hara’ in Runyon on Broadway (1954) 431: This Goldberg is a most sagacious old pelter.

5. something that goes fast, including a horse; thus in a pelter, in a hurry [SE pelt, to move rapidly].

1901

Munsey’s Mag. XXIV 484/1: It ain’t the first time the pelter’s carried double [DA].