pusher

Etymology

It is formed from English push + -er, an agent noun from the verb.^{[2][3][4][5][6]} The verb push is from Middle English pushen, from Old French poulser (modern pousser), from Latin pulsō (“to beat, strike, push”), a frequentative of pellō (“to push, drive, beat”).^[3][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

A person or thing that pushes: 1591, in Richard Perceval's Spanish–English dictionary, the Bibliotheca Hispanica.^[2][5] Etymonline likewise dates the literal sense to the 1590s.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Johnson (1755) defined the word simply as "he who pushes forward".^[8] From the early 19th century it was used of machine parts with a thrusting action,^[2][4] and in American slang of about 1900 of a salesman and of the foreman of a work crew.^[9][2][10] Around 1900 it also became the name of the rearmost mast of a seven-masted schooner; from 1913 it named an aircraft with its airscrew behind the main wings, as opposed to a tractor.^[2][4] In the slang of the 1920s a pusher was a person who promoted the use or sale of something, a tout or peddler, and especially someone who sold narcotics;^[2] Etymonline and the 1989 edition of the OED date the drug-dealing sense to 1935, in prison and American slang, and Etymonline derives it from the verb in its sense "to promote".^[3][11][12] The word could also describe an aggressively ambitious person or social climber.^[4][13] The Shorter Oxford and the OED record the small rake-like implement with which a child pushes food onto a spoon, and in Australia the word is a colloquial name for a pushchair.^{[2][4][13][14]}

Timeline

• 1591 – a person or thing that pushes.^[2][5]
• 1699 – a newly fledged songbird (obsolete by 1800).^[2]
• 1814 – a machine part with a thrusting action.^[2] The 1989 edition of the OED dated this sense to 1839.^[11]
• 1899 – in American slang, a salesman.^[9]
• 1901 – a foreman of a work crew; the seventh mast of a seven-masted schooner.^[2][9]
• 1902 – a girl or young woman, also a prostitute; a child's implement for pushing food onto a spoon.^[2]
• 1913 – an aircraft with its airscrew behind the main wings.^[2]
• 1925 – in tennis slang, a player who keeps the ball in play and waits for the opponent's errors.^[2]
• 1929 – a tout or peddler, especially a seller of narcotics.^[2] Etymonline dates the drug sense to 1935.^[3]
• 1953 – in Australia, a pushchair.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A person who sells illegal drugs, especially narcotics: Police arrested two pushers outside the station.^[13][15][4]
2. An aggressively ambitious person; a social climber.^[13][4]
3. A person or thing that pushes.^[13][2][5]
4. A machine part or tool that pushes something, as in a watchmaker's kit.^[5][2]
5. An aircraft whose propeller is behind the engine or the main wings, or the propeller itself.^[13][2]
6. (British) A small rake-like implement with which a young child pushes food onto a spoon.^[13][2]
7. (Australian) A pushchair.^[13][2][14]
8. (slang) The foreman of a work crew.^[2][9][10]
9. (tennis slang) A player who keeps the ball in play and waits for the opponent to make mistakes.^[2]

Word family

• paper-pusher
• pen pusher
• pencil pusher
• pill pusher

Related words

• push
• pulse
• repulse
• propel

References

1. ^ 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 t u v w Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g 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 e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
7. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
8. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
9. ^ a b c d Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
10. ^ a b Cassidy, Frederic G. & Joan Houston Hall (eds.) (1985–2002), Dictionary of American Regional English, vols I–IV, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press
11. ^ a b Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
12. ^ Dalzell, Tom; Victor, Terry, eds. (2013), The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, 2nd ed., London: Routledge
13. ^ a b c d e f g h Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
14. ^ a b Moore, Bruce, ed. (2004), The Australian Oxford Dictionary, 2nd ed., Melbourne: Oxford University Press
15. ^ Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster