1685 R. Lucas Enq. Happiness i. ii. 47 How far should I prefer the..unconcernment of a Poet..before the former sort of servile Philosophic Proggers!

1703 Fox with Fire-brand Unkennell’d & Insnar’d 22 The Church Party..were always such Drudges and Proggers for one another.

1799 C. Schwiers Gram. Dutch Lang. 282/1 Baatzoeker, progger.

1876 F. K. Robinson Gloss. Words Whitby Prooagers, beggars.

1996 C. I. Macafee Conc. Ulster Dict. 262/2 Progger, a scrounger.

1774 L. Carter Diary 27 June (1965) II. 840 He then became a great progger in Catching fish, Beavers, otters, Muskrats, and Minxes with his traps.

1887 G. B. Goode Fisheries U.S.: Hist. & Methods II. 604 A miserable set who help the oystermen in winter and ‘go clamming’ in summer. They are locally known as ‘proggers’.

1944 Sun (Baltimore) 4 Mar. 8/3 Gilbert Byron has presented us with one of his most characteristic poems, all about the ‘progger’, who is, in Delaware and Chesapeake tidewater parlance, a fellow who makes a living by oystering, digging clams and doing odd jobs along shore.

1973 Ann. Rev. Anthropol. 2 121 The white watermen of the lower Eastern Shore of Maryland's Chesapeake Bay... These ‘proggers’ living off the crabs, oysters, terrapins, ells, ducks, and other creatures of the bay and marshes possessed a distinctive subculture.

2001 J. Barth Coming Soon 363 Just an old-time Chesapeake progger's what I am, and you'd be s'prised what turns up in these marshes.

1818 W. Midford Coll. Songs 46 in Eng. Dial. Dict. The progger an' steel.

1894 R. O. Heslop Northumberland Words 552 Progger, a butcher's stabbing knife.

1962 ‘C. Marchant’ Heritage of Folly i. 37 A short silence followed, broken only by the sound of the progger as Mrs Batley thrust it through the hessian.

1974 S. Dobson Geordie Dict. 50 Progger, a butcher's stabbing knife.

1985 Conc. Sc. Dict. 522/1 Progger, a pricker, marking point.

1998 Evening Chron. (Newcastle) (Nexis) 25 July 17 Re: the lady having difficulty finding proggers for clippy mats. The idea used when I was younger was when a wooden clothes peg broke was to sharpen the unbroken end to a sharp point.