mobsmann.
/ˈmɒbzmən/, U.S. /ˈmɑbzm(ə)n/ 1. A member of a gang of criminals; (formerly esp.) a pickpocket.Recorded earliest in swell-mobsman: see swell adj. c.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > possession > taking > stealing or theft > thief > [noun] > company of thieves > member of
mobsman1843
mob1884
the mind > possession > taking > stealing or theft > thief > pickpocket or cutpurse > [noun] > pickpocket > gang or class of > member of
swell-mobsman1836
mobsman1843
1843 Sessions Papers 6 Jan. 38 I have heard..that the prisoner is a swell mob's man.
1856 Q. Rev. June 183 A school of mobsmen.
1862 H. Mayhew London Labour (new ed.) Extra vol. 25 ‘Mobsmen’, or those who plunder by manual dexterity.
1935 A. J. Pollock Underworld Speaks 77/1 Mobsman, a gangster, a thug; ruffian; gunman.
1942 L. V. Berrey & M. Van den Bark Amer. Thes. Slang §461/5 ‘Gangster’,..mobsman.
1942 L. V. Berrey & M. Van den Bark Amer. Thes. Slang §461/12 Pickpocket,..mobsman.
1974 Daily Tel. 29 Nov. (Colour Suppl.) 86/4 The artful mobsmen, toolers and dippers, together with their stickman accomplices, were everywhere among the crowds [of Victorian London].
1992 Herald (Glasgow) (Nexis) 31 Oct. 18 It's broadly hinted that Kennedy died at the hands of a CIA/Mob cartel, mobsman Ruby having taken the Oswald job to atone for a hit job he had bungled earlier.
2. A member of a crowd or mob. Now rare.
ΘΚΠ
society > authority > lack of subjection > unruliness > disorder or riot > [noun] > one who creates a disturbance or rioter > crowd of > one of
mob-man1747
mobsman1868
1868 Express 20 May 2/1 To..find himself in a well-dressed, querulous, selfish mob,..to see small detachments of his fellow mobsmen conveyed by policemen through phaetons and barouches [etc.].
1881 W. H. Mallock in Contemp. Rev. 938 Of all these thousands of men [composing a mob] each man has his own separate temperament... The passions that direct him as a mobsman may be quite dormant in private life.
1901 R. M. Sillard B. Sullivan II. 10 Forrest had none of his mobsmen in the theatre that evening to repeat the disturbance.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, September 2002; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1843