angler

Etymology

It is formed from English angle + -er, from the verb meaning to fish with a hook.^{[2][3][4][5][6]} The verb comes from an older noun meaning a fish-hook,^[3][7] from Old English angel (“hook, fish-hook”),^[3][8][9] from Proto-Germanic *angulaz,^[8][9] from Proto-Indo-European *ank- (“to bend”).^[8][3] It is cognate with Dutch angel, German Angel, Old Saxon angul, Old High German angul and Old Norse ǫngull,^[2][7][9] and shares its Indo-European base with Ancient Greek ἀγκύλος (ankúlos, “crooked”).^[2][9] The surname Angeler occurs in 1306 (Bartholomew Angeler), but the OED says it is not clear that this is the same word.^[2][6][3] Hoad dates the word to the 14th century,^[7] and Dictionary.com, much later, to 1545–55.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

A person who fishes with a rod and line: about 1450, in the Treatyse of Fysshynge wyth Angle: "the angleer may haue no colde ne no disese".^[2][6] Merriam-Webster Unabridged gives the 15th century, and Etymonline the middle of it.^[5][3]

Semantic evolution

Soon after the fisherman came a cant word built on the same image: in the 1560s an angler was a thief who hooked goods from open windows and stalls with a long pole, described by T. Harman in his Caveat for Common Cursetors.^[2][11] The OED now calls this sense historical.^[2] From 1622 the word could mean anyone who "angles" for something,^[2] and the American Heritage Dictionary still records "a scheming person".^[12] From 1776, in Pennant's British Zoology, it named a bottom-dwelling fish of European seas,^[2] which lures other fish by movements of a lure on its head.^[5] Johnson (1755) gave only the fisherman, "he that fishes with an angle", with a figurative example from Dryden of a patient angler playing his catch.^[13]

Timeline

• c. 1450 – a person who fishes with a rod and line.^[2][6]
• c. 1566 – cant, a thief who steals with a hooked pole.^[11] The OED has it from 1567.^[2]
• 1622 – a person who seeks to obtain something by angling for it.^[2]
• 1776 – a fish, Lophius piscatorius, that lures its prey.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A person who fishes with a rod and line, especially for sport: Two anglers shared the riverbank at dusk.^{[14][2][12][15]}
2. A predatory fish that lies on the sea bed and lures its prey with a filament on its head; an anglerfish, especially Lophius piscatorius.^{[5][4][14][2]}
3. A person who schemes or angles to get something.^[12][2]
4. (slang, historical) A thief who steals from windows or stalls with a hook on a long pole.^[2][11]

Related words

• angling
• angle
• anglerfish
• ankle
• anchor

Usage notes

Separately from the fisherman, the OED enters a noun taken from Anglo-Norman anglere, in piere anglere, a cornerstone, recorded with this spelling from 1365 to 1500 for a cornerstone or quoin, and also figuratively.^[2] The Middle English Dictionary records it too, deriving it from Old French piere anglere.^[6] The OED also has a single record from 1726 of a person who occupies an angle.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b c d e Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
7. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
9. ^ a b c d Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill
10. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
11. ^ a b c Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
12. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
13. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
14. ^ a b The Chambers Dictionary (2014), 13th ed., Edinburgh: Chambers
15. ^ Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (2009), 5th ed., Harlow: Pearson Longman