Swisser

English

Alternative forms

• Swizzer

Etymology

From Middle High German Swycer, Schwyczer, variants of Sweitzer (“Switzer”); or from French Suisse +‎ -er.

Noun

Swisser (plural Swissers)

1. (obsolete) A native of Switzerland; a Swiss. [16th–18th c.]
   • 1601, ‘WT’, translating Lord Remy of Florence, Civill considerations vpon many and svndrie histories, p. 111:

     Being impossible to conclude and accord any agreement betweene the Pope and the King of France, the Swissers came to serue the Pope, of whose valour and power the French stood much in feare.

   • 1603, Michel de Montaigne, translated by John Florio, Essays, III.13:

     A Spaniard can not well brooke to feede after our fashion, nor we endure to drinke as the Swizzers.

   • 1604, William Shakespeare, Hamlet, IV.5:

     Where is my Swissers, let them guard the doore.

   • 1624, “Vox Cœli, or News from Heaven”, in Somer's Tracts, volume II, London, published 1809:

     The Austrian Princes and the Swissers, I have still heard, are from father to sonne, hereditary and irreconcilable enimies.