croaker

Noun

croaker (plural croakers)

1. Someone who or something that makes a croaking sound.
2. Any of certain fish in the family Sciaenidae, known for the throbbing sounds they make.
3. (informal) A frog.
   • Frogs are also sensitive to vibrations through the ground, a footfall usually being sufficient to instil silence in a pond full of croakers.1974, Clive Roots, Animals of the Dark, page 41
4. (slang) A doctor.
   • "Lungs," said McGuire comprehensively. "I got it. The croaker says I'll come to time for four months longer—maybe six if I hold my gait.[…]"1903 February, O. Henry [pseudonym; William Sydney Porter], “Hygeia at the Solito”, in Everybody’s Magazine, volume VIII, number 2, New York, N.Y.: John Wanamaker, →ISSN, page 173, column 1
   • He located a doctor in Brooklyn who was a writing fool. This croaker would go three scripts a day for as high as thirty tablets a script.1977 [1953], William S. Burroughs, edited by Allen Ginsberg, Junky, Penguin Books, →ISBN, page 20
5. (slang) One who will soon die; a goner.
   • Mrs. Burke had […] bought a bottle […] to comfort him in his dying struggles (she was sure he must be a 'croaker').1888, Fredrick W. J. Henning, Some Recollections of the Prize Ring, page 75
6. (dated) A vocal pessimist, grumbler, or doomsayer.
   • There are croakers in every country, always boding its ruin.1771–1790, Benjamin Franklin, “The Autobiography [Part 1]”, in John Bigelow, editor, Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. […], Philadelphia, Pa.: J[oshua] B[allinger] Lippincott & Co., published 1868...
   • It is thought by many, and said by some, that this Republic has already seen its best days; that the historian may now write the story of its decline and fall. Two classes of men are just now especially afflicted with such forebodings. The first are those who are croakers by nature – the men who...1869, Frederick Douglass, Our Composite Nationality