Dictionary

trougher en · NOUN

Etymology

From trough + -er, due to comparisons between greedy people and pigs with their snouts in the trough.

Meanings

1. (UK) A greedy person.
   • Forget the fact I was playing for England at cricket: I was also an Olympic-standard trougher, and so I would order big steaks, burgers, whatever I fancied, and Blacky thought nothing of ordering the same thing, or something similar. 2012, James Anderson, Jimmy: My Story:
   • Her appetite has definitely gone down, she's the classic bored trougher, but here there's so much to do she can sometimes forget to eat. 2017, Laura Kemp, Whatever Happened to Vicky Hope's Back Up Man?:
   • As Abel Magwitch would have said, he was "a heavy grubber"; or as a Yorkshireman, with a similar disregard for elegance, would express it, "a good trougher." 1939, Harold Armitage, Early Man in Hallamshire, page 78:
   • He turned with twelve portions, much to the delight of umpire Paul Gibb, who subsequently asked for all the spare ‘official’ lunches to be passed on to him. A legendary trougher – he could eat for England any time – Gibb got through most of them before the end of the interval. 1999 August 14, Dickie Bird, White Cap and Bails:
2. (broadly) (chiefly UK) A careerist politician, especially one representing the Scottish National Party.
   • Humza is the trougher's trougher. 2022 February 25, Craig Murray, craigmurray.org.uk:
   • And according to an insistent story, Vince MacLean, a formal provincial Liberal leader and prodigious trougher running in Sydney-Victoria, was slapped in the face by a woman at the door. 1997, The Canadian Forum, volume 76, page 10:
   • Many of the critical quotations about Rolnik's role in the UN come from Conservative MPs: "The aid budget is a way in which poor people from Britain pay for the lifestyle of rich people in developing countries. We are having to pay taxes to put this international trougher up in a four-star hotel. 2017, Dr. Stephen Harkins, Dr. Jairo Lugo-Ocando, Poor News: Media Discourses of Poverty in Times of Austerity, page 119:
3. (alt-of, alternative) Alternative spelling of troffer.
   alt of troffer

Forms