smouser, noun

/sməʊsə//ˈsməʊzə//ˈsmaʊzə/
Forms:
Also smauser, smouzer.
Origin:
EnglishShow more smous verb + English agential suffix -er.
obsolescent
smous noun.
1887 A.A. Anderson 25 Yrs in Waggon I. 40The people..wanted to know what I was doing in the country, as I did not handel (trade), and was not a smouser, the term applied to those who went about the country in waggons to sell and buy.
1899 G.H. Russell Under Sjambok 46Can you not see that I am a smouzer? (trader).
1900 O. Osborne In Land of Boers 82Since there has been such a demand in the country the last few years for financiers and company promoters, the smausers have disappeared wonderfully.
1905 P. Gibbon Vrouw Grobelaar 146He was a smouser (pedlar)...He sold thimbles and pills and hymnbooks...I remember a Scotch smouser, who was called Peter Piper.
1912 W. Westrup Land of To-Morrow 116The coolie smouser — the Indian who peddles goods all over the country and has no office or store expenses.
1924 L. Cohen Reminisc. of Jhb. 25Drunken loafers, thirsty fossickers,..ruined gamblers, cunning smousers, a bushel of toffs from Poland.
1977 F.G. Butler Karoo Morning 18Oh! such watches!..Smousers sell them...I was shown one, a wretched Geneva watch in metal-gilt case.
1985 D. Bikitsha in Sunday Times 1 Sept. 4Will God’s lighter-skinned creatures tolerate the piercing whistles of the smousers as they tread up and down the coaches plying their trade of nail-clippers, shoelaces, fruit, combs, mirrors and hankies?
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obsolete or obsolescent
smous, verbv.smousing, verbal nounvbl n.
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