tranter

• traunter

trant +‎ -er

tranter (plural tranters)

1. (obsolete, UK, dialect) a peddler.
   • 1872, Thomas Hardy, “Part the First: Chapter II: The Tranter's”, in Under the Greenwood Tree:

     Through the open doorway of a small inner room on the right hand, of a character between pantry and cellar, was Dick Dewy’s father Reuben, by vocation a “tranter,” or irregular carrier.

   • 1879, William Barnes, Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect, Dobbin Dead

     An’ he met wi’ zome yew-twigs the men had a-cast

     Vrom the yew-tree, in churchyard, the road that he past.

     He wer pweison’d. (1.) O dear, ’tis a hard loss to bear,

     Vor a tranter’s whole bread is a-lost wi’ his meäre;

   • 1929, Florence Hardy, The Early Life of Thomas Hardy, 1841-1891:

     ...the persons tenanting these few houses included two retired military officers, one old navy lieutenant, a small farmer and tranter, a relieving officer and registrar, and an old militiaman […]

• tranter in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913