crabber

plural crabbers

1. A person who catches crabs.

   Many shrimpers complain that the crabbers place their traps too close together and that they can't go between the traps without snagging their nets.

   1989, National Fisherman, volumes 70-71, page 26

2. nauticalA boat used for catching crabs.

   In the bright haze of morning they came into Hort Harbor, where a hundred craft were moored or setting forth: fishermen's boats, crabbers, trawlers, trading-ships, two galleys of twenty oars […]

   1972, Ursula K. Le Guin, The Farthest Shore

   1 more example

   It is standard practice for search and rescue authorities to ask other vessels in the area to assist. Usually, this is done. The weather on the night of 31 December was too atrocious, and when at 11pm the Coast Guard asked the crabber Ruff & Reddy to head to the scene, its skipper refused, as a skipper has a right to do if he believes conditions to be too treacherous.

   2025 October 21, Rose George, “‘I knew in my head we were dying’: the last voyage of the Scandies Rose”, in The Guardian

plural crabbers

1. A person who finds fault or criticizes.

   There were one or two crabbers, of course—people who wanted his job—but no one paid any attention to the likes of them.

   1936, Josephine Tey, A Shilling for Candles, New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, published 1998, →ISBN, page 103

   Synonyms: criticizer, bellyacher, carper, castigator, caviler, censurer, complainer, critic