bibler
nounEtymology From bible + -er.
1
Archaic, Derogatory, Slang A protestant.
- as the Church-mens policy was great, so they forgot not to foresee a storm, in case Mary should depart without issue, and the Crown come to Elizabeth, who was, as the Germans called them, a Protestant, as the French, a Huguenot, or of the Religion, as the English, a Lollard, a Bibler, a Gospeller; wherefore there were many plots to take her away;1651, Charles George Cock, English-Law, page 32:
- And bcause it greueth them that your subiectes be growen so farre in knowlege of theyr dewtye to God, to youre grace, & to theyr neghboures, theyr inwarde malyce doth breake oute in to blasphemous & vncomlye wordes, in so much that they cal your louynge & faythfull people, heretikes, new fangled fellowes, English biblers, coblers of diuinite, fellowes of the new fayth. &c . with such other vngodly sayenges.1838, John James Lowndes, Memorials of ... Myles Coverdale, page 96:
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- There credence and their language was alike, All Babel-biblers they did dead dislike.2007, Anthony Copley, “The Temple of Peace”, in Robert S. Miola, editor, Early Modern Catholicism: An Anthology of Primary Sources, page 208:
2
A student at a boarding school who has the job of reading from the bible during meals.
- But now I pray you let us hearken to the Scripture, for the bibler is not yet come to Tu autem.1814, Sir John Harington, The Metamorphosis of Ajax, page 86:
- With his interpolation of sacred matter into that profane work, the author compares the treatment he experienced "at our commencement feasts and such-like, in Cambridge; that when we have been in the midst of some pleasant argument, suddenly the Bibler hath come, and with a loud and audible voice began with Incipit libri Deuteronomium, caput vicesimum tertium.1896, Walter Raleigh, “Sir John Harington”, in The New Review, volume 15, page 282:
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- At table at every meal all shall diligently and attentively hear the Bible before and after dinner and supper, until the Master or his deputy shall tell the Bibler to end.2005, Walter Mildmay, The Statutes of Sir Walter Mildmay, page 61:
3
Slang A flogging of six cuts on the small of the back in which the bible clerk and ostiarius held up the culprit's shirt while a school official administered the flogging.
Winchester College
- "That's a lie! if you don't tell me where you got these verses this instant, I'll give you a bibler." —A bibler, you must know, reader , has nothing whatever to do with the Holy Scriptures, but is a particularly severe flogging, attended by certain forms to give the punishment more solemnity.1835, John Blakiston, Twenty Years in Retirement - Volume 2, page 238:
- If a boy were detected in a gross falsehood, besides undergoing a bibler, he had to "stand under the nail" for an hour or two previously.1883, Edward John G.H. Rich, Recollections of the two St. Mary Winton colleges, page 10:
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- "A bibler was supposed to imply an (in some degree) moral offence", a scourging implied nothing of the kind; the comparative frequency of biblers and of scourgings ("often vulgarized into scrubbings" ) was, T. A. Trollope supposed, as "one to a thousand".1917, Arthur Kemball Cook, Christopher Johnson, About Winchester College, page 323:
4
One given to quoting the bible; a bible-thumper.
- So in respect of this particular opposition, in the ones reiecting, the others vrging of traditions, the sadduces were termed […] Biblers, or Scripturists .1626, Thomas Godwin, Moses and Aaron, page 58:
- Well—I ain't much of a Bibler, but I got th' Book in my outfit an' I like to read it.1959, Sewell Thomas, Silhouettes of Charles S. Thomas, page 149:
1 more example
- Outside, a Bibler harassed me with pamphlets: Satan in Your Hairbrush was one, Satan in the Teapot, another.2015, William Sutton, Lawless and the Devil of Euston Square: