battler, n.1
Forms:
ME batelur, ME batailler, 18 battler.(Show Less)
Etymology: Middle English batelur , < Old French batailleor, -eur, agent-noun < bataillier to battle v.1; also Middle English batailler , < Old French bataillier , < bataille battle n. In modern English perhaps directly < battle v.1
1. One who battles or fights; a warrior, a fighter.
c1300 K. Alis. 1433
He wan of that lond the honor, And mony noble batelur.
1489 Caxton tr. C. de Pisan Bk. Fayttes of Armes i. x. 28
The right worthy and preu baitailler Cena the romain.
1862 Q. Rev. Apr. 410
Rough battlers with the world.
c1300—1862(Hide quotations)
2.
a. spec. A swagman (swagman n. (b) at swag n. Compounds 1). Austral.
1900 H. Lawson Over Sliprails 6
We're only ‘battlers’, and me and my mate, pickin' up crumbs by the wayside.
1928 Bulletin
(Sydney)
15 Feb. 21/1
Last time the poor old battler jus' struggled to our place.
1961 ‘J. Danvers’ Living come First vii. 116
‘Nice bloke, Marty,’ added the swagman.., ‘always got a crust for a battler, an' a kind word.’
1900—1961(Hide quotations)
b. Used in Australia and New Zealand in various other senses and shades of meaning (see quots.), esp. a person struggling against odds. Cf. quot. 1862 at sense 1.
1898 Bulletin
(Sydney)
17 Dec. (Red Page)
A bludger is about the lowest grade of human thing, and is a brothel bully... A battler is the feminine.
1941 K. Tennant Battlers xvi. 165
They were a new sort of people, the travellers; and he belonged to them... He was a ‘battler’... They would still have a job on their hands clearing out the battlers; men and women who could face a desert and live off the country, travelling in small mobs.
1943 J. A. W. Bennett in Amer. Speech 18 88
[In N.Z.] a toiler or battler is a hard, conscientious worker—both are used with a shade of condescension.
1943 S. J. Baker Dict. Austral. Slang
(ed. 3)
9
Battler, a small-time hawker; a hard-up horse trainer struggling along in the game; a broken-down punter who still continues betting;..anyone who struggles for existence.
1962 Listener 18 Jan. 128/1
Ditchburn is another Australian, a ‘battler’ as we say, a man who knows what he wants.
1964 D. Horne Lucky Country : Australia 25
Australians love a ‘battler’, an underdog who is fighting the top dog, although their veneration for him is likely to pass if he comes out from under.
1898—1964(Hide quotations)