1883 W. H. Cope Gloss. Hampshire Words Musher, a mushroom. Large ones are called ‘cow-mushers’.

1967 H. Orton & M. F. Wakelin Surv. Eng. Dial. IV. i. 190 Q[uestion]. What do you call these; you can eat them?.. [Hampshire] Mushers.

1988 J. Lavers Dict. Isle of Wight Dial. Musheroons, also mushers, mushrooms.

1887 Globe 22 Apr. 3 A musher, or a struggler, is a man who drives a horse and cab which is his own property, and his only ‘lot’.

1927 E. Wallace Forger (1960) 303 He was a ‘musher’—that is to say, he owned his own cab and mostly did night work.

1975 Times 23 Sept. 14/6 An owner-driver..is known as a ‘musher’ in the trade, presumably because we have to keep driving along to make any money, like the sledge-team driver who calls ‘Mush! Mush!’ at his dogs.

1989 M. Ripley Just Another Angel (BNC) 156 I keep what I call my cabby's disguise... A fawn flat cap and an old red and black pullover with a hole in the elbow of the right sleeve. (That's where the real musher always rests his arm on the cab window-frame during traffic jams.)

1900 J. White Jrnl. Yukon River Exped. (MS) 118 in R. Tabbert Dict. Alaskan Eng. (1991) 201/1 Musher, one who travels on the trail, with or without dogs.

1902 L. McKee Land of Nome 178 I felt that I had received a very high compliment..when an old-timer in the party..told me that I was a ‘musher from hell’.

1925 Chambers's Jrnl. July 456/2 Those far northern regions are inaccessible..except to the most hardy and expert ‘mushers’.

1948 Time 19 July 34/3 Klondike Mike, the greatest of the mushers, the sourdough who struck it rich and kept his poke, is a living legend.

1973 Islander (Victoria, Brit. Columbia) 20 May 3/1 Art Fraser, owner and musher of the dog team, was my guide.

1991 Daily Tel. 21 Jan. 42/6 It takes every ounce of human energy to keep the dogs from running away with the sled, with or without their musher on board.