roper
noun
- magical beast in Dungeons & Dragons
Wiktionary
Pronunciation: /ˈɹəʊpə(ɹ)/
name
Etymology: * As an English surname, from the noun roper * As a north/Low German surname for the town crier, from Middle Low German ropen (“to call”), from Old Saxon hrōpan.
- A surname.
- A town in Washington County, North Carolina, United States.
noun
Etymology: From Middle English roper, ropere; equivalent to rope + -er.
- 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.”
“I'm a roper — mostly tie-down, but I do some team, too.”
- A ropemaker (a maker of ropes).
“But Gideon Giles was no common man, although a roper.”
“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.”
- 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.”
“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.”
- 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.”
“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.”
- 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.”
“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.”
- 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?”
“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.”
- 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.”
“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.”