garreter

Etymology

garret + -er

noun

1. Alternative form of garreteer (“poor writer; literary hack”)
   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. 1972, Pat Rogers, Grub Street: Studies in a Subculture, page 384
2. (obsolete) A thief who used housetops to enter by garret windows.
   [A]bout 40 were burglars, "dancers," "garreters," and other adepts with the skeleton keys. 1889, Charles Tempest Clarkson, J. Hall Richardson, Police!, page 260