carper

plural carpers

1. A person who habitually carps, who talks too much and regularly finds fault.

   He censures everything, this zealous carper.

   1908, Molière, translated by Curtis Hidden Page, Act I, and Scene I, Tartuffe, published 1664

   4 more examples

   Shame not these woods, / By putting on the cunning of a carper.

   c. 1605–1608 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life of Tymon of Athens”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene iii]

   Come, let my carper to his life now look, And find there darker lines than in my book He findeth any […]

   1678, John Bunyan, “The Author’s Apology for His Book”, in The Pilgrim’s Progress from This World, to That which is to Come: […], London: […] Nath[aniel] Ponder […], →OCLC

   What is this sort of piece going to do when confronted with row upon row of coldly sober carpers?

   1919 August, P. G. Wodehouse, “Prohibition and the Drama”, in Vanity Fair, page 21

   […] Lady Tipper […] shook her head in wounded defiance of all the carpers and whiners.

   2004, Alan Hollinghurst, chapter 11, in The Line of Beauty […], London: Picador, →ISBN

plural Carpers

1. A surname.