Word.ws English Dictionary

legger

legger noun: a bootlegger.

Noun

legger (plural leggers)

  1. (informal) A bootlegger.
    • Oh, you mean the ex-legger the eldest girl picked up and went and married.1939, Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep
  2. (UK, obsolete) A man employed by the owners of a canal to push boats through narrow canal tunnels. The legger would lie on his back on a piece of wood on the boat with his feet reaching to the tunnel wall, and walk it along. This could be done by the boat's crew, but the canals employed men specifically for the task because they could do it faster and prevent a tunnel becoming a bottleneck for traffic.
  3. (in-compounds) Something having the specified kind or number of legs.
    • Won't your ladyship condescend to use a three legger. (offers a stool)1842, James Bruton, Bathing: a farce, in one act, page 6
    • […] a yellow-legger, it also had a yellow beak. Which meant it wasn't a layer anymore and was okay to eat. Nowadays we get yellow-legged fryers.1991, Pearl Violette Metzelthin, Ruth Reichl, Gourmet (volume 51, issues 1-6, page 60)

Forms of legger

pluralleggers

Origin of legger

From leg + -er.

Questions about legger

What does legger mean?
Legger means a bootlegger.
What part of speech is legger?
Legger is a noun.
What is the plural of legger?
The plural of legger is leggers.

Words near legger in the dictionary

  1. legged out
  2. legged over
  3. legged up
  4. leggedness
  5. leggeds
  6. legger
  7. leggero
  8. leggers
  9. legges
  10. Legget
  11. leggett

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: legger (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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