dosser

plural dossers

1. IrelandUKSomeone who dosses, someone known for avoiding work.

   Illustrating the strength of feeling, some said Dorries was “never here and is as useful as a chocolate teapot”, while “Dosser Dorries” posters appeared in the area.

   2023 October 20, “Labour takes Nadine Dorries’ former seat in Mid Bedfordshire byelection”, in The Guardian, UK

   Synonyms: shirker, bum, couch potato, dawdler, deadbeat, dogfucker, do-naught, do-nothing

2. A homeless and jobless person.

   1 more example

   Formerly they endeavoured to occupy all the seats, but the lynx-eyed Metropolitan Police declined to allow any such proceedings, and the dossers, knowing the invariable kindness of the City Police, made tracks for that portion of the Embankment which, lying east of the Temple, comes under the control of the Civic Fathers.

   1890, William Booth, chapter 3, in In Darkest England and the Way Out

3. One who lodges in a doss-house.

plural dossers · alternative dorsel · alternative dorser

1. obsoleteA pannier or basket.

   To hire a ripper's mare, and buy new dossers.

   1626 February 13 (licensing date; Gregorian calendar), Francis Beaumont, John Fletcher, “The Noble Gentleman”, in Comedies and Tragedies […], London: […] Humphrey Robinson, […], and for Humphrey Moseley […], published 1647, →OCLC, Act V, scene i

2. obsoleteA hanging tapestry; a dorsal.