rouser
nounEtymology From rouse + -er.
1
Something very exciting or stimulating.
2
One who rouses another from sleep.
3
Archaic, Colloquial A stirrer in a copper for boiling wort.
4
Australia A roustabout.
- They are all shearers, or at least they say they are. Some might be only ‘rousers.’1896, Henry Lawson, “Stragglers”, in While the Billy Boils, Sydney, N.S.W.: Angus and Robertson […], →OCLC, page 85:
- The shearers threw some blankets in / To make another swag, / The rousers gave a billycan / And brand new tucker bag; […]a. 1964, Edward Harrington, “[In Faraway Places] The Swagless Swaggie”, in William [Rossa] Cole, editor, Rough Men, Tough Men: Poems of Action and Adventure, New York, N.Y.: The Viking Press, published 1969, →LCCN, page 150:
1 more example
- The aim of the rouser is eventually to become a shearer via the medium of the learner’s pen, and in fact the rousie is really an apprentice shearer; but there is certainly a great gulf between the accomplished prince of the board and the miserable rouseabout in the strange new world of his first shed.1967, Graham Jenkin, Two Years on Bardunyah Station: Being an Account of the Experiences of a Jackaroo, Together with Some Poems, etc., Seacombe Heights, South Australia: Pitjantjara Publishers, page 66:
- Derived terms
- rabble rouser