carper
See also: Carper
English
Etymology
carp + -er
Pronunciation
- (UK) IPA(key): /kɑː(ɹ)pə(ɹ)/
- Rhymes: -ɑː(ɹ)pə(ɹ)
Noun
carper (plural carpers)
- A person who habitually carps, who talks too much and regularly finds fault.
- c. 1605–1608, William Shakespeare, “The Life of Tymon of Athens”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act IV, scene iii]:
- Shame not these woods, / By putting on the cunning of a carper.
- 1678, John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress from This World, to That which is to Come: […], London: […] Nath[aniel] Ponder […], OCLC 228725984; reprinted in The Pilgrim’s Progress (The Noel Douglas Replicas), London: Noel Douglas, […], 1928, OCLC 5190338, page The Author’s Apology for his Book:
- Come, let my carper to his life now look,
And find there darker lines than in my book
He findeth any […]
- 1908, Molière, Tartuffe (1664), translated by Curtis Hidden Page, Act I, Scene I,
- He censures everything, this zealous carper.
- 1919 August, P. G. Wodehouse, “Prohibition and the Drama”, in Vanity Fair, page 21:
- What is this sort of piece going to do when confronted with row upon row of coldly sober carpers?
- 2004, Alan Hollinghurst, chapter 11, in The Line of Beauty, New York: Bloomsbury, OCLC 1036692193:
- […] Lady Tipper […] shook her head in wounded defiance of all the carpers and whiners.
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Synonyms
- See also Thesaurus:complainer