roper

Etymology

From Middle English roper, ropere; equivalent to rope + -er.

noun

1. Agent noun of rope; one who uses a rope, especially one who throws a lariat or lasso.
   Instead of taking to the open and falling a prey to a roper, the calf lunged sideways and went under the horse-pasture fence. 1910 November, George Pattullo, “Molly”, in McClure's Magazine, volume 36, page 28
   I'm a roper — mostly tie-down, but I do some team, too. 2017, Patricia McLinn, Ride the River
   After a roper flanks a calf (picks it up and lays it down on the ground oh so very gently), he/she decides to wrap one time or two times prior to the Hooey (the Hooey is the half hitch that locks your tie together). 2021, Jody Westbrook Bergman, Cook Like a Tie-Down Roper: Menus and Memories
2. (dated) A ropemaker (a maker of ropes).
   But Gideon Giles was no common man, although a roper. 1841, Thomas Miller, Gideon Giles the Roper, page 27
   A roper's wife, for instance, was able to fool her incredibly gullible husband while having an affair with a prior literally right under the roper's nose, the guilty pair having sex while they lay together in the same bed as the sleeping roper. 2006, Shannon McSheffrey, Marriage, Sex, and Civic Culture in Late Medieval London, page 143
3. One who ropes goods; a packer.
   I have seen 50 to 60 men doing this work, and the men vied with each other to see which could cap or rope the best; and if a bale was turned off from the capper that did not look well, some of the others would criticise it, and the same with ropers. 1902, The National Nurseryman, page 134
   About thirty per cent of all the women employed in the packing plant are in the sausage department. They work as linkers, tie-ers, ropers and hangers; help in the preparation of the raw materials, mix spices, and wash pans. 1938, United States. National youth administration, Occupational Briefs: Meat industry, page 5
   The diggers pay their "ropers" $10/bu for "littlenecks" and $1/bu for "cherrystones." On good days, each digger may gross almost $600. After paying the roper, this leaves him with about $500 a day before other expenses are taken out. 2001, Marine Fisheries Review, page 26
4. (slang) Synonym of outside man (“accomplice who locates a mark to be swindled by a confidence trickster”)
   The "roper" will inform the mark that such horses can't be picked out of the Form; what one needs is inside information. 1968, Marvin B. Scott, The Racing Game, page 110
   Here's how it usually goes: You're forced to rely on the only tow truck driver in the entire county, who turns out to be a roper for the local inbred family of serial killers. 2007, Seth Grahame-Smith, How to Survive a Horror Movie, page 49
   For example, one person may have a specialty in cooling off the mark, while another is able to lure in the mark with ease; these people may be referred to as the “roper” or the “outside man”. 2012, Wilbur R. Miller, The Social History of Crime and Punishment in America
   What have you got—a store con? Shall you be needing a roper? 2021, Cyril M. Kornbluth, A Mile Beyond the Moon
5. A person hired by a gambling establishment to locate potential customers and bring them in.
   Any person who, in this city, lives idly and is a gambler, or roper, steerer or capper for any gambling house or room, or any gambling game, or who lives idly and has the reputation of being a gambler, or roper, steerer or capper for any gambling house or room, or any gambling game, shall be considered and treated as a vagrant. 1888, An Ordinance in Revision of the Ordinances Governing the City of Kansas, page 364
   Ropers like the one he'd sent packing would never steer him to such a highclass joint. So he kept giving the ropers the shove while he watched to see arriving customers point the way. 2011, Clive Cussler, Justin Scott, The Spy
   His old partner Allen Jones hired him as a roper for his gambling operation located across the street from the St. Charles Hotel. 2012, G. R. Williamson, Frontier Gambling
   He first appeared among St. Louis sporting men as a “roper” and venturesome player against the bank. 2019, John Philip Quinn, Fools of Fortune; or, Gambling and Gamblers
6. (slang) An undercover informer.
   Supposing in a plant on a job a roper roped a man, who was, let us say, employed by the company, and maybe a member of the union, how much would he get after he was roped? 1936, United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Education and Labor, Violations of Free Speech and Rights of Labor, page 137
   Such an operative might also be the contact for one or more "missionaries" or labour spies. The roper who was sent for was Louis M. Wendell. 2003, Charles H. McCormick, Seeing Reds, page 45
   By 1876, however, he was well launched on a career as a professional informer, or “roper,” for the Secret Service. 2014, Peggy Robertson, The Lincoln Body Snatchers
7. (gaming) Any of a variety of monsters with tentacles that they use to capture victims.
   The party ran into a statue of a roper, which somehow attacked them. 1991, Thomas Miller, The Adventurers: Book Two
   Stone ropers are distant relatives of the common roper though the two races are do not (as far as sages know) associate with one another. 2016, Anthony Uyl et al., Gigas Monstrum: Book II, page 244
   I understand this to mean that passive Wisdom (Perception)—and even Searching—will never reveal a roper for what it is as long as it holds still. Its Stealth skill comes into play only if it's moving. Thus, a stationary roper takes its opponents by surprise, as long as its eye is closed and its tendrils retracted until it strikes. 2019, Keith Ammann, The Monsters Know What They're Doing, page 172
   Moments ago, vines had shot from the ground to lash at us; I'd thought at first that they were the tentacles of a worm or roper monster, but the leaves revealed that we were dealing·with some kind of plant creature. 2021, Llo Yuu Tanaka, Reincarnated as a Sword