a1325 (c1250) Gen. & Exod. (1968) l. 3096 On wind cam Fro westen, and ðo opperes nam, And warpes ouer in-to ðe se.

1797 R. Polwhele Hist. Devonshire I. 120 The Samlet of Mr. Pennant, called here the hopper.

1822 J. M. Good Study Med. I. 278 M[usca] putris, the larves of which are known to the housewife by the name of hoppers, as those of all of them by that of maggots.

1861–77 R. M. Chipman MS Notes on Bartlett's Dict. Americanisms in Dict. Amer. English (1942) III. 1274/1 Hopper, a grasshopper, especially the ravaging locust called grasshopper at the West.

1877 Mrs. Fleming Life Arnot (1879) 192 The armies of barbarous inhuman black hoppers are not greatly diminished.

1897 Chambers's Jrnl. 14 766/2 The locusts were attacked while still in the ‘hopper’ stage.

1933 Bulletin (Sydney) 5 July 21/2 One man says he counted 2000 hoppers [sc. kangaroos] in one paddock.

1946 E. Afr. Ann. 1946–7 44/1 Youths have been out in the district beating and burning locusts... Besides these commendable efforts in destroying hoppers the Samburu have made a most useful war contribution.

1966 E. Palmer Plains of Camdeboo xv. 247 Our locust of the Karoo, the brown locust, Locustana pardalina, is well-known to us as a tiny dark hopper, later becoming black and orange.

c1405 (c1390) G. Chaucer Reeve's Tale (Hengwrt) (2003) l. 119 Yet saw I neuere..How þ^t the hoper wagges til and fra.

c1430 Pilgr. Lyf Manhode (1869) i. lxxiii. 43 In the hoper of the mille..he was grounden broken and brused.

c1592 Faire Em sig. A4^v, in Simpson School of Shakspere II. 414 Now let me alone to pick the Mill, to fill the hopper, to take the toll.

1787 R. Burns Poems (new ed.) 144 The heapet happer's ebbing still, And still the clap plays clatter.

1825 ‘J. Nicholson’ Operative Mechanic 158 The hopper..is agitated by two iron pins on the axis..that alternately raise the vessel containing the grain, which again sinks by its own weight.

a1862 H. D. Thoreau Maine Woods (1864) ii. 154 A boy collecting the long edgings of boards as fast as cut off, and thrusting them down a hopper, where they were ground up beneath the mill.

1876 T. Hardy Hand of Ethelberta II. xl. 151 Modern developments have shaken up the classes like peas in a hopper.

1763 W. Lewis Commercium Philosophico-technicum 277 The space included between the pipes, at their lower end, under the bason, is a kind of hopper.

1763 W. Lewis Commercium Philosophico-technicum 278 The water issuing from the hopper is necessarily reduced into drops.

1832 C. Babbage Econ. Machinery & Manuf. iii. 22 To make the engine supply the fire by means of a hopper, with small quantities of fuel at regular intervals.

1873 Spons' Dict. Engin. VI. 2253 Receiving and weighing hoppers.

1873 Spons' Dict. Engin. VI. 2254 The sheet-iron funnel in which the grain is received before passing up into the weighing hopper.

1875 E. H. Knight Pract. Dict. Mech. Hopper, 1. a chute for feeding any material to a machine. 2. The basin of a water-closet. 3. (Glass.) A conical vessel suspended from the ceiling, containing sand and water for the use of the glass-cutter.

1878 F. S. Williams Midland Railway (ed. 4) 626 The tickets are placed in a kind of tube or hopper, down which they descend, and..are drawn one by one across a printing machine.

1883 Daily News 27 July 2/1 The new twelve-barrel Nordenfeldt gun..Hoppers to fit on the feeders keep them constantly replenished, and so incessant is the fire that in half a minute 600 shots were discharged.

a1300 E.E. Psalter lxxx. 7 [lxxxi. 6] His hend in hoper served þai.

1362 W. Langland Piers Plowman A. vii. 57 He heng an Hoper on his Bac In stude of a Scrippe.

c1420 Pallad. on Husb. x. 43 Thyn hopur clothe hienys skyn; and throwe Thy seede therynne.

?1523 J. Fitzherbert Bk. Husbandry f. vi^v Put thy pees into thy hopper.

1652 W. Blith Eng. Improver Improved xxvi. 179 Be sure ever and anon to stir up the bottom of your Hopper, or Seed-lop.

1821 J. Clare Village Minstrel II. 106 What once were kernels from his hopper sown, Now browning wheat-ears.

1759 in J. Brand Hist. & Antiq. Newcastle (1789) II. 588 A person invented a machine..called a Hopper..to take ballast out of ship in rivers, in order to convey the same to the sea, and there drop it.

1887 Daily News 14 Dec. 2/6 New steamer Giralda, when off Claxheugh, river Wear, came into collision with a laden hopper.

1894 Daily News 8 Oct. 6/7 The men who were working the marine dredger and its attendant hoppers in the outer port of Port Said.

1862 N.Y. Tribune 10 June Of the fifty-seven hoppers thrown over Opequan bridge, one half can be put into serviceable order again.

1838 T. L. Mitchell Three Exped. (1839) II. 319 We find among the features on these lofty river banks many remarkable hollows, not unaptly termed ‘hoppers’..from the water sinking into them, as grain subsides in the hopper of a mill.

1847 D. A. Wells & S. H. Davis Sketches Williams Coll. 88 You find yourself on the edge of a gulf at least a thousand feet deep, the four sides of which apparently converge to a point at the bottom. This place, from its peculiar form, is called the Hopper.

1840 Penny Cycl. XVIII. 140/1 The action of the square piano-forte, on its first introduction, consisted of a key, a lifter, a hammer, and a damper..Longman and Broderip..brought out a patented invention having two additional parts in the action, namely, the hopper, and the under~hammer.

1896 A. J. Hipkins Descr. & Hist. Pianoforte 37 The key, hopper, spring and set-off.

1895 Westm. Gaz. 16 Oct. 4/2 The Admiralty hopper barge..for use at the Gibraltar new Dry Dock and Extension Works, had an adventurous voyage.

1867 W. H. Smyth & E. Belcher Sailor's Word-bk. Hopper-punt, a flat-floored lighter for carrying soil or mud, with a hopper or receptacle in its centre, to contain the lading.

1844 Catholic Weekly Instr. 103 Hopper casements..should be inserted in almost all the windows, in order to secure due ventilation.

a1513 W. Dunbar Poems (1998) I. 68 With hoppir hippis and henches narrow.

1884 Internat. Health Exhib. Official Catal. 59/2 Flushing Water Closet, with Hopper Pan.

1939 Archit. Rev. 86 166 The windows have a side-hung casement and a long top-hung hopper window for night ventilation.

1699 B. E. New Dict. Canting Crew Hopper-arst, when the Breech sticks out.

1787 F. Grose Provinc. Gloss. Hoppet, a little basket, chiefly for holding seed-corn, worn by the husbandmen, in sowing, at their backs, whence a man with protuberant buttocks is compared to a man accoutered with a hoppet, and stiled hoppet-arsed, vulgarly hopper~arsed.

1672 W. Wycherley Love in Wood ii. i She is bow-legg'd, hopper-hipp'd.

a1627 T. Middleton Women beware Women ii. ii, in 2 New Playes (1657) 119 Her body straight, not hopper rumpt.

1808 C. Vancouver Gen. View Agric. Devon v. 124 It performs all the operations of thrashing, winnowing, grinding, and bolting, together with an iron hopper axis for grinding apples.

1787 in Ann. Rep. U.S. Commissioner Patents 1849: Arts & Manuf. (1850) (31st Congr., 1st Sess.: House of Representatives Executive Doc. No. 20, Pt. 1) 574 The other [device], denominated an hopper-boy, so constituted as to spread the meal over the floor of a mill to cool.

1813 Niles' Reg. 5 Add. A. 6/2 Our Hopper-boy was an upright shaft revolving round with an arm.

1862 N.Y. Tribune 10 June There were one hundred and eighty-three iron hopper-cars recovered in a condition to be restored.

a1592 R. Greene Sc. Hist. Iames IV (1598) v. sig. I To gather feathers like to a hopper crowe, And loose them in the height of all my pomp?

1896 Engin. Index II. 120 The hopper dredge, ‘Percy Sanderson’, holding 1250 tons of debris and provided both with steel buckets and a suction pump.

1967 Shipbuilding & Shipping Rec. 6 July 21/1 (heading) ‘McFarland’... A fully automated hopper dredge for the U.S. Army.

1876 Simons & Brown Brit. Pat. 4382 This Invention, which relates to improvements in hopper dredgers, has for its object..to effect the discharge of the load or contents of hopper dredgers on to the adjoining river or canal bank.

1969 R. Hammond Mod. Dredging Pract. iv. 101 Direct pumping ashore to disposal areas is another function performed by a hopper dredger.

1741 W. Ellis Mod. Husbandman May ii. 19 Such Land would return an hopper-eared Crop at Harvest, or, in plainer English, a little Ear, with a few Kernels.

1829 J. Hunter Hallamshire Gloss. 51 When the tenants of the manor of Sheffield ground their corn at the lord's mill, some of them were called hopper-frees, being privileged.

1898 Edinb. Rev. Apr. 440 The ‘hopper-free’ tenants at Leeds..had their corn grinded immediately upon the emptying of the hopper, though there were never so many attending.

1704 T. D'Urfey Hell beyond Hell 54 Holland, up to the ankles fine, But hopper'd still about the chine.

1719 in Cowper Canterb. Reg., St. George (1891) 207 Edward Even and Alice his pretended wife, hoppers and way-going persons.

1751 T. Smollett Peregrine Pickle IV. xcv. 25 The venerable society of weeders, podders, and hoppers.

1860 C. Dickens Uncommerc. Traveller in All Year Round 16 June 234/2 Many of these hoppers are Irish, but many come from London.

1883 J. Y. Stratton Hops & Hop-pickers 45 The hopper~house is generally a long low-pitched building.

1884 Daily News 23 Sept. 3/2 Great efforts have been made..to provide suitable lodgings for the hoppers, and ‘hopper-houses’ catch the eye at every turn of the road.