equivalent in the French aboyeur. Amongst touting photographers, in low neighbourhoods, this individual is called a doorsman, and the term is likewise applied to auction-room touts.
1748. T. Dyche, Dictionary (5 ed.). Barker (s.), a salesman's servant that walks before his door, to invite customers in to buy cloaths.
1785. Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. Barker. The shop-*man of a dealer in second-hand clothes, particularly about Monmouth St., who walks before his shop and deafens every passenger with his cries of clothes, coats, or gowns, 'what d'ye want gemmen, what d'ye buy?'
1828. Jon. Bee, Picture of London, p. 109. Mock-auctions and 'selling-off' shops are not the only pests where barkers are kept at the doors to invite unwary passengers to 'walk in, walk in, sale just begun.'
1888. Texas Siftings, Oct. 13. I am a barker by profession. The pedestrian agility required to pace up and down before the 'Half-dime Museum of Anatomy and Natural History,' soliciting passers-by to enter, is of itself enormous; but where it gets in its base hit is when it increases the appetite. McGinty knows this. McGinty is my friend, but I wouldn't serve a tenth of his unexpired terms for ten dollars. I have peddled clams with McGinty and have seen him eat three bushels of our stock. That is nothing. When the show isn't paying, I have to go out and eat grass. This shows you what nickel-plated, back-action appetites we have.
3. A man with a troublesome cough; his complaint is otherwise known as a 'church-*yard cough,' or a 'notice to quit' (q.v.).
4. (nautical.)—Besides being used as a designation for a pistol, barker is also employed for lower deck guns on board ship.
1842. Cooper, Jack O'Lanthorne, I., 151. Four more carronades with two barkers for'ard.
5. See quotation, as follows:—
1879. Greenwood, Outcasts of London. But what was barking? I thought a great deal about the matter, and could arrive at no more feasible conclusion than that a barker was a boy that attended a drover, and helped him to drive his sheep by means of imitating the bark of a dog.
6. (University.)—A noisy assertive individual; and, in a complimentary sense, a great swell.
7. (American.)—A noisy coward; a blatant bully.
Barkey (nautical).—A term of
endearment in use amongst seafaring
men when speaking of a
vessel to which they have got
attached. 'She's a barkey—she
is, my lads!'
Barking-Irons, subs. (thieves').—Pistols.
Cf., Barker, sense 1.
Barking-iron is, historically,
an older term than barker by
about a quarter of a century.
Formerly applied, in the navy,
to large duelling pistols.
1789. Geo. Parker, Life's Painter, p. 173. Pistols, barking-irons.
1834. H. Ainsworth, Rookwood, bk. II., ch. vi. 'And look you, prick the touch-hole, or your barking-iron will never bite for you.'
Barking through the Fence, phr.
(American).—A taking advantage
of some obstacle or shield
for saying or doing something,
which, but for such protection,
would not be said or done; or
which if done or said might
entail unpleasant consequences
upon the sayer or doer.
Barkshire, subs, (common).—Ireland.—See
Bark.
