DCHP-1 Online
packer 
1a † n. a person who transports goods by means of pack horses or mules; one who operates a freighting business using a pack-train.
See also: pack-train
- 1859 The arrival of over one hundred pack mules from the Chilliwak country, where they have been wintering, and offers by the packers to take freight to Lytton city for eighteen cents, has failed to revive trade.
- 1958 Tom Hutchinson was a packer and worked with a pack train of 300 mules between Yale and Barkerville.
1b n. a person who transports goods and supplies to remote places by truck or other vehicle.
- 1952 . . . I was wakened with the news that the packer was in from Come Lucky and would be leaving after lunch. I was taken out and introduced to a great ox of a man who was loading groceries into an ex-army truck.
2a n. a person who transports goods on his own back.
See also: packman
- 1873 We could see that continuous labour for one or two years in solitary wilderness . . . as surveyor, transit-man . . . or even packer, is a totally different thing from taking a trip across the continent. . . .
- 1921 Upon the first his companion placed two more packs; then, stooping beneath the weight of 240 pounds, the packers at a jog-trot set off uphill and down, over rugged rocks and fallen timber, through fern-covered marsh and dense underbrush.
- 1956 From that day forward I drew double wages, and under Abraham's tutelage I was to become--of sorts--a canoeman, a packer, and a whitewater man.
- 1961 One packer . . . [called] "the human derrick," actually a man of light stature, was quite a character. . . .
2b n. a person who packs (def. 4) for hunting expeditions, etc.
See also: pack ((v.)) (def. 4)
- 1965 Burrell left Sindre in June . . . to supervise the . . . training of 15 local Indians as guides and packers.
3 n. a pack animal.
See also: pack dog
- 1908 Getting two or three of the wise old bell-mares, that are in every string of packers, at the end of a long rope, the canoemen shot across the whirl of mid-stream and got footing on the opposite shore.
- 1944 In spring and fall when it is impossible to haul your supplies, dogs come in handy as packers.
4 n. a fishing vessel that carries the catch of smaller vessels to the cannery.
- 1954 The packer had a gillnet boat tied up alongside, bow and stern, with only its pilot house above water.
- 1958 In with 75,000 pounds of dogfish from the west coast last week was the packer Annie Tuck.
- 1859 The arrival of over one hundred pack mules from the Chilliwak country, where they have been wintering, and offers by the packers to take freight to Lytton city for eighteen cents, has failed to revive trade.