garreter

English

Etymology

From garret +‎ -er.

Noun

garreter (plural garreters)

1. Alternative form of garreteer (“poor writer; literary hack”)
   • 1972, Pat Rogers, Grub Street: Studies in a Subculture, page 384:

     Not that the existence of Grub street is to be doubted: it was, indeed, a grim actuality, and many a garreter realised by experience
     How unhappy's the fate
     To live by one's pate
     And to be forced to write hackney for bread.

2. (obsolete) A thief who used housetops to enter by garret windows.

   Synonym: (slang) dancer

   • 1889, Charles Tempest Clarkson, J. Hall Richardson, Police!, page 260:

     [A]bout 40 were burglars, "dancers," "garreters," and other adepts with the skeleton keys.