ash-hopper

English

Noun

ash-hopper (plural ash-hoppers)

1. (US, historical) A cask filled with ash used to produce lye, which would be leached out by water (especially rainwater).
   • 1873, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], Charles Dudley Warner, chapter I, in The Gilded Age: A Tale of To-day, Hartford, Conn.: American Publishing Company, published 1874, →OCLC, page 18:

     There was an ash-hopper by the fence, and an iron pot, for soft-soap-boiling, near it.

References

• “ash-hopper, n.” under “ash, n.2”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.
• William Dwight Whitney and Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1914), “ash-hopper”, in The Century Dictionary: An Encyclopedic Lexicon of the English Language, revised edition, volumes I (A–C), New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC, page 1519.