Wiktionary

blackleg

English

edit

Etymology

edit

From black +‎ leg.

Pronunciation

edit
  • Audio (US):(file)

Noun

edit

blackleg (countable and uncountable, plural blacklegs)

  1. (uncountable, agriculture, veterinary medicine) A fatal cattle disease caused by the soil-borne bacterium Clostridium chauvoei; symptomatic anthrax. [from 18th c.]
  2. (uncountable) A disease of potato crops caused by pectolytic bacteria, characterized by blackening and decay of the lower stem portion.
  3. (countable) A person who cheats in a game; a cheater, especially a dishonest bookmaker. [from 18th c.]
    • 1836 December 31, Laurie Todd, “Letter from Laurie Todd: Christmas and New-Year’s-Day”, in New-York Mirror, a Weekly Journal, Devoted to Literature and the Fine Arts, volume XIV, number 27, New York, N.Y.: Scott & Co., printers, →OCLC, page 211, column 1:
      [H]ere, then, was a community of good taste and kind feeling, no sharpers, no black-legs, no wolves in sheep's clothing.
    • 1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 32, in The History of Pendennis. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1849–1850, →OCLC:
      [Y]our friend Bloundell-Bloundell is a professional blackleg, and travels the Continent, where he picks up young gentlemen of fashion and fleeces them.
    • 1852?, The Sporting Magazine (page 185)
      They have no regard for respectability like yours — nothing between a baron and a blackleg.
    • 1908, W[illiam] B[lair] M[orton] Ferguson, chapter II, in Zollenstein, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC, page 25:
      I had never defrauded a man of a farthing, nor called him knave behind his back. But now the last rag that covered my nakedness had been torn from me. I was branded a blackleg, card-sharper, and murderer.
  5. (countable) A person who takes the place of striking workers. [from 19th c.]
    Synonyms: blacklegger, scab, scalie, strikebreaker
    • 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XLIV, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC, pages 364–365:
      In the autumn there was a row at some cement works about the unskilled labour men. A union had just been started for them and all but a few joined. One of these blacklegs was laid for by a picket and knocked out of time.
    • 1970 June, traditional, “The Blackleg Miner” (track 4), in Hark! The Village Wait‎[1], performed by Steeleye Span:
      It's in the evening after dark when the blackleg miner creeps to work. With his moleskin pants and his dirty shirt, there goes the blackleg miner.
    • 2023, David Brandon, The General Strike 1926: A New History, Pen and Sword Books Ltd, →ISBN, page 62:
      There was some sympathy for the miners among the railway workers, members of the ASRS [Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants], but any who advocated sympathetic action in support of the miners were instantly dismissed. The company attempted to bring in blacklegs from outside the area under the auspices of the National Free Labour Association but ASRS members used various means to ‘persuade’ most of them to return whence they came. Very few strikebreakers and blacklegs succeeded in assisting the company and those who did could expect to be roughed up.

Derived terms

edit

Translations

edit

Further reading

edit

Verb

edit

blackleg (third-person singular simple present blacklegs, present participle blacklegging, simple past and past participle blacklegged)

  1. To continue working whilst fellow workers strike.
    • 1939, Philip George Chadwick, The Death Guard, page 154:
      Why was I there, munitioning, blacklegging, slaving as though my bread depended on it?
Retrieved from "https://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=blackleg&oldid=84403406"