spielern.

1859 G. W. Matsell Vocabulum 83 Speiler, a gambler.

1885 Australasian Printers' Keepsake 72 [He] eyed Bob very suspiciously, muttering ‘spieler’ and ‘Murrumbidgee whaler’.

1886 N.Z. Herald 1 June 4/7 It is stated that a fresh gang of ‘speelers’ are operating in the town.

1893 J. A. Barry Steve Brown's Bunyip 21 You want to get away amongst the spielers and forties of the big smoke?

1911 W. H. Koebel In Maoriland Bush xxii. 283 The professional sharper or ‘spieler’..wings his periodical flights from Sydney or Melbourne.

1929 Detective Fiction Weekly 13 July 731/2 Hard on their trail would come all the ‘magsmen’, the ‘spielers’, the dips, the ‘broadsmen’, and the ‘pickers up’.

1935 H. R. Williams Comrades of Great Adventure 234 The spielers worked the three-card trick on the ‘mugs’.

1957 J. Waten Shares in Murder 156 You could match your wits against smart con-men and spielers.

1894 Mid-Winter Appeal (San Francisco) 19 May 15/1 Some spielers for the Midway who attempted to lick the Camp gate keeper were sent up for 24 hours.

1901 World's Work Aug. 1100/2 Last of the professions on the Midway are those of the ‘barker’, ‘ballyhooer’ and ‘spieler’.

1920 C. Sandburg Smoke & Steel 245 Is there a spieler who has spoken the word?

1924 W. M. Raine Troubled Waters v. 55 Streamers stretched across from building to building, and ‘spielers’ for side shows bawled the merits of their attraction.

1926 Ladies' Home Jrnl. May 32 I suddenly became interested in astronomy, and every night I appeared to listen to the spieler.

1936 J. L. Hodson Our Two Englands vi. 109 The public..are as fascinated by a good spieler or barker on the show front as they were then.

1937 Printers' Ink Monthly May 42/3 Spieler, a radio commentator.

1956 Time 11 June 42 Mary Costa..agrees that a girl spieler should be ‘good-looking but not too flashy to detract from the product’.

1976 National Observer (U.S.) 8 May 16/1 His style is all style, a curious amalgam that incorporates at its corniest Dare to Be Great spieler Glenn Turner.

1931 Police Jrnl. 4 502 A cardsharper (broadsman) met a confidence trickster (con-head) and a thief (tealeaf) in a gaming house (speiler).

1945 P. Cheyney I'll say she Does! iii. 57 It's a gamblin' spieler... There's big play there every night.

1955 D. Webb Deadline for Crime iv. 88 Throughout Soho and Mayfair there are a number of what are known as speilers, illicit gambling dens run by the underworld mainly for the underworld, or wealthier mugs of the racecourses.

1962 R. Cook Crust on its Uppers i. 21 The real morries..flying dodgy kites with each other at bent spielers till the punter..outs his kiting-book too and scribbles a straight one.

1976 J. O'Connor Eleventh Commandment iv. 62 A well-known boxing referee who used to run a dirty low-down dive of a spieler.