tester

Etymology 1

From Middle English tester, from Old French testre, from Latin testura.

noun

1. A canopy over a bed.
   And I could as hardly spare my gloves as my shirt, or forbeare washing of my hands both in the mornng and rising from the table, or lye in a bed without a testerne and curtaines about it, as of most necessary things. 1603, Michel de Montaigne, translated by John Florio, Essays, volume III, page 13
   The half-dozen pieces […] were painted white and carved with festoons of flowers, birds and cupids. […] The bed was the most extravagant piece. Its graceful cane half tester rose high towards the cornice and was so festooned in carved white wood that the effect was positively insecure, as if the great couch were trimmed with icing sugar. 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 1, in The China Governess
2. Something that overhangs something else; especially a canopy or soundboard over a pulpit.
   With our shaggy jackets drawn about our shoulders, we now passed the Tomahawk from one to the other, till slowly there grew over us a blue hanging tester of smoke, illuminated by the flame of the new-lit lamp. 1851, Herman Melville, chapter 11, in Moby Dick

Etymology 2

From Middle English tester, equivalent to test + -er.

noun

1. A person who administers a test.
2. A device used for testing.
3. (Australia, slang, obsolete) A punishment of 25 lashes (strokes of a whip) across a person′s back.
4. A sample of perfume available in a shop for customers to try before they buy.
5. A miniature pot of paint for testing and comparison purposes.
6. (cycling) A cyclist who focuses on success in time trials.

Etymology 3

For testern, teston, from French teston, from Old French teste (“the head, the head of the king being impressed upon the coin”). See tester (“a covering”), and compare testone, testoon.

noun

1. An old French silver coin.
2. (Britain, slang, dated) A sixpence.
   When after their beaſtly ſport and pleaſure Mounſieur Libid[inoſo] heat of luſt was ſomewhat aſſwaged, and ready to goe, féeling his pocket for a venereall remuneration [i.e., a copper coin] finds nothing but a Teſter, or at leaſt ſo little, that it was not ſufficient to pleaſe dame Pleaſure for her hire. … My Ladie would not beléeue Monſ. Libid. a great while, but ſearched and féeled for more coine, … 1602, S[amuel] R[owlands], “How a Citizen was Serued by a Curtizan”, in Greenes Ghost Havnting Conie-catchers.[…], London: Printed [by Peter Short?] for R[oger] Iackson, and I. North,[…], →OCLC; republished in The Complete Works of Samuel Rowlands: 1598–1628: Now First Collected, volume I, [Glasgow]: Printed [by R. Anderson] for the Hunterian Club, 1880, →OCLC, page 42

Etymology 4

Inherited from Middle English tester; see testiere.

noun

1. Alternative form of testiere (“armor for a horse's head”)
   A horse-head tester had cutouts for the animal's eyes and ears. A peytral protected the horse's breast, while the crinet, made of overlapping steel plates joined by leather straps or rivets, protected its neck. 2009-01-01, Madeleine Pelner Cosman, Linda Gale Jones, Handbook to Life in the Medieval World, 3-Volume Set, Infobase Publishing, page 275
   The tester and crupper, together with the piser, which probably protected the chest, formed the basis of most horse armour[…] 2003, Juliet R. V. Barker, The Tournament in England, 1100-1400, Boydell Press, page 175