grafter

English

Pronunciation

  • (file)

Etymology 1

graft + -er

Noun

grafter (plural grafters)

  1. One who inserts scions on other stocks, or propagates fruit by engrafting.
  2. An instrument by which grafting is facilitated.
  3. The original tree from which a scion has been taken for grafting upon another tree.
  4. (slang) Someone who works in market stalls.
Translations

Etymology 2

From graft + -er.

Noun

grafter (plural grafters)

  1. A corrupt person, one who receives graft.
    • 1911, The Twentieth Century Magazine, Vol. 4, page 335.
      If the people are corrupt; if everybody is a grafter, as our pessimistic friends would have us believe, Roosevelt would be unpopular. His popularity is proog that the people, as a whole, are honest.
    • 1980, David Mark Chalmers, The Muchrake Years, Krieger Publishing Company, →ISBN, page 152.
      It is rather confused rhetoric to call a grafter a thief. His crime is not that he filches money from the safe but that he betrays a trust.
    • 2007, Rebecca Menes, "Limiting the Reach of the Grabbing Hand: Graft and growth in American Cities, 1880 to 1930", in Edward L. Glaeser, Claudia Goldin (eds.), Corruption and Reform: Lessons from America's Economic History, National Bureau of Economic Research Conference Report, The University of Chicago Press, →ISBN, page 64.
      Rapid city growth rewarded the circumspect grafter with opportunities for what one famous Tammany Hall politician termed “honest graft” [] .

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