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roper

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roper¹

  • /ˈɹəʊpə(ɹ)/

Where it comes from

From Middle English roper, ropere; equivalent to rope + -er.

noun ropers

  1. agent Agent noun of rope; one who uses a rope, especially one who throws a lariat or lasso. Instead of taking to the open and falling a prey to a roper, the calf lunged sideways and went under the horse-pasture fence.
  2. dated A ropemaker (a maker of ropes). But Gideon Giles was no common man, although a roper.
  3. One who ropes goods; a packer. I have seen 50 to 60 men doing this work, and the men vied with each other to see which could cap or rope the best; and if a bale was turned off from the capper that did not look well, some of the others would criticise it, and the same with ropers.
  4. slang Synonym of outside man (“accomplice who locates a mark to be swindled by a confidence trickster”). The "roper" will inform the mark that such horses can't be picked out of the Form; what one needs is inside information.

    Similar: outside man

  5. A person hired by a gambling establishment to locate potential customers and bring them in. Any person who, in this city, lives idly and is a gambler, or roper, steerer or capper for any gambling house or room, or any gambling game, or who lives idly and has the reputation of being a gambler, or roper, steerer or capper for any gambling house or room, or any gambling game, shall be conside

    Similar: lugger, picker-up, roper-in, runner, steerer

  6. slang An undercover informer. Supposing in a plant on a job a roper roped a man, who was, let us say, employed by the company, and maybe a member of the union, how much would he get after he was roped?
  7. Any of a variety of monsters with tentacles that they use to capture victims. The party ran into a statue of a roper, which somehow attacked them.

Roper²

Where it comes from

* As an English surname, from the noun roper

* As a north/Low German surname for the town crier, from Middle Low German ropen (“to call”), from Old Saxon hrōpan.

proper noun

  1. A surname.
  2. A town in Washington County, North Carolina, United States.
  3. The Roper River (a river in the Katherine Region, Northern Territory, Australia)
  4. slang Ngukurr (a town in Roper Gulf, Katherine Region, Northern Territory, Australia)

Thesaurus

Closest in meaning: trevor, ropemaker, robemaker, ropery, ropewalker, roap, ropedancer, roband, robbin, rippier, gift rope, rover, raip, royster, roisterer, manrope

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Cite this
MLA

"roper." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/roper. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026.

APA

roper. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/roper

Chicago

"roper." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/roper.

BibTeX
@misc{roper_2026,
  title = {roper},
  howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://micwyn.com/word/roper},
  urldate = {2026-11-06}
}