racketers

Noun

racketer (plural racketers)

1. (obsolete) One who is dissipated and given to carousing.
   • At a private concert last night with my cousins and Miss Clements; and again to be at a play this night; I shall be a racketer, I doubt .1754, Samuel Richardson, The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Bart - Volume 1, page 113
2. One who is skilled in racket sports.
   • Having passed his two or three years there, and been signalised as the best cricketer, the best racketer, the greatest dunce, and sometimes the most accomplished smoker and drinker of his time, he goes home finished at sixteen, and sets up for himself.1851, Stalk-Warroga, “Sketches of Irish Society”, in Tait's Edinburgh Magazine, volume 18, page 669
3. One who instigates or perpetrates a racket (fraud or swindle), a hustler, swindler, or racketeer.
   • Finally he advised the hustler he had lined up a sucker who looked good for at least a ten-thousand-dollar score. (The racketer always classifies his individual earnings as a score when discussing business.)1927 November 19, “Broadway Rackets”, in The New Yorker, volume 3, numbers 38-53, page 105