chimney-sweep

plural chimney-sweeps

1. archaicArchaic form of chimney sweep.

   It is supposed to climb like the old chimney-sweeps, being found with its back braced against the side of the hollow.

   1867, “F. R.”, “Notes on Trapping and Wood-Craft”, in S[ewell] Newhouse, edited by J[ohn] H[umphrey] Noyes and T. L. Pitt, The Trapper’s Guide; A Manual of Instructions […], 2nd edition, Wallingford, Conn.: […] Oneida Community. […] the Community Press, page 115

   2 more examples

   […] he came home to find […] honest Swartz in her favourite amber-coloured satin, with turquoise-bracelets, countless rings, flowers, feathers, and all sorts of tags and gimcracks, about as elegantly decorated as a she chimney-sweep on May day.

   1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, “A Quarrel about an Heiress”, in Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848, →OCLC, page 181

   The Cleansers—such as scavengers, nightmen, flushermen, chimney-sweeps, dustmen, crossing-sweepers, “street-orderlies,” labourers to sweeping-machines and to watering-carts.

   1851, Henry Mayhew, “The Street-Folk”, in London Labour and the London Poor; […], volume I (The London Street-folk. Book the First.), London: [George Woodfall], →OCLC, page 4, column 2