1769 J. Knox Hist. Jrnl. Campaigns N.-Amer. I. 220 The Colonel is ordered to provide the regiment with flannel under-waistcoats, and Leggers, or Indian stockings.

1844 Leics. Mercury & Gen. Advertiser Midland Counties 17 Aug. The 2s. 1d. would have to be divided between the legger, footer, and seamer.

1876 Galveston (Texas) Daily News 17 June (advt.) 3 Pepper Leggers, $100 each; 3 Aiken Leggers, $125 each; 3 Aiken Footers, $75 each.

1877 Notts. Guardian 16 Mar. (advt.) Sale of rotary hosiery machinery..the rotary frames, including a four-fashioned legger.

1945 Industr. Marketing July 99/3 The ever-growing call for sheerness, regardless of type of yarn, will make trouble for the mill that is still operating with leggers and footers—causing a high percentage of rejects and seconds because of bad matching and lack of uniformity.

1979 Labor Stud. Jrnl. Winter 261 Veteran skilled leggers and footers trained young men in an informal apprenticeship.

1993 P. Scranton in G. Jones & M. Rose Family Capitalism 129 In 1929–30, Quaker Hosiery sold its first complement of machines, [and] invested about $1 million in new leggers and footers.

1876 Sullivan (Indiana) Democrat 23 Feb. Then the lot of savages—the skinner, legger and entrail drawer—pounce upon the carcass as a very hungry man assails a beefsteak.

1923 R. A. Clemen Amer. Livestock & Meat Industry xv. 332 A string of butchers now follow each other in rapid succession. The ‘leggers’ remove the hind legs at the hoof and the forelegs at the knee.

1949 K. Stronach in A. E. Woodhouse N.Z. Farm & Station Verse (1950) 188 The legger slits as a surgeon does And the puncher strips the pelt.

2012 D. Havens Last Classroom xii. 94 I'm having to send too many live ones onto the legger and butcher.

1831 Jackson's Oxf. Jrnl. 29 Oct. Soon after he met the prisoner on the towing-path, who asked him if he required a legger.

1836 G. Head Home Tour 143 These men..are called ‘leggers’ for they literally work the boat with their legs, or kick it from one end of the tunnel to the other.

1861 Reynolds's Newspaper 15 Sept. 9/3 The Grand Junction Canal Company have..made an important alteration in the mode of working their barges, so as to dispense with the services of these ‘leggers’.

1911 E. T. Thurston Flower of Gloster (1912) xxxviii. 221 There were professional leggers to carry you through.

2009 S. Fisher Canals of Brit. x. 48/2 Until 1871 boats were legged through, there being a leggers' hut at the southern end.

1926 Flynn's Weekly 16 Jan. 640/2 I sashayed for a legger an' run into a rube hip agent with a bottle and some jake which helped some.

1935 N. Algren Somebody in Boots ix. 159 They brang a Mex 'legger in here one afternoon way last fall.

1951 E. Pryor Big Play iii. 252 The 'leggers back home kept their stuff buried in their orchards.

1963 G. Ryga Hungry Hills viii. 136 ‘It was bad moonshine—coulda done the same to a man.’ ‘What—kill a man?’ ‘Sure. The old man took it back to the 'legger he bought it from. Said he'd turn him in to the cops. He should've, too.’