trotter

Etymology

It is formed from English trot + -er, an agent noun from the verb.^[2][3][4][5] The OED compares Medieval Latin trotārius and Old French trotier;^[2] the Old French word, meaning a trotter or messenger, is given by Reaney and Wilson as the source of the surname, which they record from 1148.^[6][3] The verb trot is from Old French troter, from Frankish *trotton, from Proto-Germanic *trott-, related to tread.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The feet of an animal, especially as food: about 1358 in the 1989 edition of the OED.^[7] The current OED, which has not fully revised the entry, begins instead with a horse or other animal that trots, in 1381.^[2][8] Etymonline gives the late 14th century for both of these senses, and the mid-14th century for trotter meaning a messenger.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The Middle English trotter, a messenger, was probably the source of the surname.^[3] The horse sense led to a horse bred and trained for the trot, and in American use to a standardbred horse for harness racing.^[2][5][9] From 1555 the word was used of a person always on the move,^[2][8] and in the 19th century, in university slang, of a tailor's assistant who went round taking orders.^[7][8] The feet of sheep and pigs as food gave a humorous name for human feet;^[2][4] the cant dictionary of about 1698 lists trotters for feet, and Dickens's Short Trotters (1841) is named for his short legs.^[10] Mapping Metaphor places the word in a pattern linking body parts with horses since the first half of the 14th century.^[11] Johnson (1773) defined it as "one that walks a jolting pace" and "a sheep's foot".^[12] In later slang a trotter was a deserter or escaped prisoner in Britain (1950) and pork in the United States.^[13] In East Anglian dialect the word once meant a prostitute.^[14]

Timeline

• c. 1358 – the feet of an animal, especially of sheep and pigs as food.^[7] Etymonline dates this to the late 14th century,^[3] and the current OED's first quotation is from Skelton, before 1529.^[2]
• 1381 – a horse or other animal that trots.^[2][8]
• 1555 – a person who goes about briskly and constantly.^[2][8]
• c. 1698 – feet, in slang.^[10]
• 1818 – one who "trots out" another in conversation.^[2][8]
• 1864 – a person who collects bait for fishing.^[2][8]
• 1902 – a trotting cart, a sulky.^[2][8]

Meanings

Noun

1. A horse that trots, especially a standardbred trained for harness racing.^[9][5][2]
2. The foot of a pig, sheep or other four-footed animal, especially as food: pig's trotters.^[9][5][2]
3. (humorous) A person's foot.^[2][4][10]
4. One that trots.^[5][2]
5. (British) An errand boy or messenger.^[5]
6. A tailor's assistant who goes round to take orders.^[7][8]

Word family

• bogtrotter
• globetrotter

Related words

• trot
• tread

Usage notes

Merriam-Webster Unabridged also has a separate trotter, a fisherman who uses a trotline, formed from trot in that sense and -er.^[5]

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 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 c 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 f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ Reaney, P. H.; Wilson, R. M. (1991), A Dictionary of English Surnames, 3rd ed., London: Routledge
7. ^ a b c d Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
9. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
10. ^ a b c Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
11. ^ Mapping Metaphor with the Historical Thesaurus, University of Glasgow, mappingmetaphor.arts.gla.ac.uk
12. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
13. ^ Dalzell, Tom; Victor, Terry, eds. (2013), The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, 2nd ed., London: Routledge
14. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)