Word.ws English Dictionary

roper

/ˈɹəʊpə(ɹ)/

roper noun: a ropemaker (a maker of ropes). Also the agent noun of rope.

Noun

roper (plural ropers)

  1. (dated) A ropemaker (a maker of ropes).
    • But Gideon Giles was no common man, although a roper.1841, Thomas Miller, Gideon Giles the Roper, page 27
    • A roper's wife, for instance, was able to fool her incredibly gullible husband while having an affair with a prior literally right under the roper's nose, the guilty pair having sex while they lay together in the same bed as the sleeping roper.2006, Shannon McSheffrey, Marriage, Sex, and Civic Culture in Late Medieval London, page 143
  2. One who ropes goods; a packer.
    • I have seen 50 to 60 men doing this work, and the men vied with each other to see which could cap or rope the best; and if a bale was turned off from the capper that did not look well, some of the others would criticise it, and the same with ropers.1902, The National Nurseryman, page 134
    • About thirty per cent of all the women employed in the packing plant are in the sausage department. They work as linkers, tie-ers, ropers and hangers; help in the preparation of the raw materials, mix spices, and wash pans.1938, United States. National youth administration, Occupational Briefs: Meat industry, page 5
  3. (slang) Synonym of outside man (“accomplice who locates a mark to be swindled by a confidence trickster”).
    • The "roper" will inform the mark that such horses can't be picked out of the Form; what one needs is inside information.1968, Marvin B. Scott, The Racing Game, page 110
    • Here's how it usually goes: You're forced to rely on the only tow truck driver in the entire county, who turns out to be a roper for the local inbred family of serial killers.2007, Seth Grahame-Smith, How to Survive a Horror Movie, page 49
    Synonyms:
    outside man
  4. A person hired by a gambling establishment to locate potential customers and bring them in.
    • Any person who, in this city, lives idly and is a gambler, or roper, steerer or capper for any gambling house or room, or any gambling game, or who lives idly and has the reputation of being a gambler, or roper, steerer or capper for any gambling house or room, or any gambling game, shall be...1888, An Ordinance in Revision of the Ordinances Governing the City of Kansas, page 364
    • Ropers like the one he'd sent packing would never steer him to such a highclass joint. So he kept giving the ropers the shove while he watched to see arriving customers point the way.2011, Clive Cussler, Justin Scott, The Spy
  5. (slang) An undercover informer.
    • Supposing in a plant on a job a roper roped a man, who was, let us say, employed by the company, and maybe a member of the union, how much would he get after he was roped?1936, United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Education and Labor, Violations of Free Speech and Rights of Labor, page 137
    • Such an operative might also be the contact for one or more "missionaries" or labour spies. The roper who was sent for was Louis M. Wendell.2003, Charles H. McCormick, Seeing Reds, page 45
  6. Any of a variety of monsters with tentacles that they use to capture victims.
    • The party ran into a statue of a roper, which somehow attacked them.1991, Thomas Miller, The Adventurers: Book Two
    • Stone ropers are distant relatives of the common roper though the two races are do not (as far as sages know) associate with one another.2016, Anthony Uyl et al., Gigas Monstrum: Book II, page 244

Proper noun capitalized: Roper

Roper

  1. A surname.
  2. A town in Washington County, North Carolina, United States.
  3. The Roper River (a river in the Katherine Region, Northern Territory, Australia)
  4. (slang, Northern Territory) Ngukurr (a town in Roper Gulf, Katherine Region, Northern Territory, Australia)

Also used as

roper is also the agent noun of rope.

roper meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

roper in Hindi

रोपर

roper in Tamil

ரோப்பர்

roper in Marathi

रोपर, रॉपर

roper in Urdu

روپر
More languagesFewer languages
roper in Bengali
রোপার, রপার
roper in Telugu
రోపర్
roper in Malayalam
റോപ്പർ, റോപർ
roper in Kannada
ರೋಪರ್
roper in Punjabi
ਰੋਪਰ, ਰੌਪਰ
roper in Gujarati
રોપર
roper in Odia
ରୋପର, ରୋପର୍
roper in Nepali
रोपर

Examples of roper in a sentence

  • The diggers pay their "ropers" $10/bu for "littlenecks" and $1/bu for "cherrystones." On good days, each digger may gross almost $600.2001, Marine Fisheries Review, page 26:
  • For example, one person may have a specialty in cooling off the mark, while another is able to lure in the mark with ease; these people may be referred to as the “roper” or the “outside man”.2012, Wilbur R. Miller, The Social History of Crime and Punishment in America:
  • His old partner Allen Jones hired him as a roper for his gambling operation located across the street from the St.2012, G. R. Williamson, Frontier Gambling:
  • Louis sporting men as a “roper” and venturesome player against the bank.2019, John Philip Quinn, Fools of Fortune; or, Gambling and Gamblers:

Synonyms of roper

All synonyms of roper

Forms of roper

pluralropers

Plural of roper: ropers

Origin of roper

From Middle English roper, ropere; equivalent to rope + -er.

* As an English surname, from the noun roper * As a north/Low German surname for the town crier, from Middle Low German ropen (“to call”), from Old Saxon hrōpan.

Words formed from roper

Questions about roper

What does roper mean?
Roper means a ropemaker (a maker of ropes).
What is roper in Hindi?
Roper in Hindi is रोपर. See Roper meaning in Hindi.
How do you use roper in a sentence?
The diggers pay their "ropers" $10/bu for "littlenecks" and $1/bu for "cherrystones." On good days, each digger may gross almost $600.
What part of speech is roper?
Roper can be a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce roper?
Roper is pronounced /ˈɹəʊpə(ɹ)/.
What is the plural of roper?
The plural of roper is ropers.

Words near roper in the dictionary

  1. ropemaxx
  2. ropemaxxed
  3. ropemaxxes
  4. ropemaxxing
  5. ropemen
  6. roper
  7. Roper Gulf
  8. Roper River Creole
  9. roper-in
  10. roperies
  11. roperipe

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: roper (page history and authors); Roper (page history and authors); roper (Hindi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); roper (Tamil, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); roper (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); roper (Urdu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); roper (Bengali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); roper (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); roper (Malayalam, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); roper (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); roper (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); roper (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); roper (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); roper (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-roper.ogg.

Cite this entry: “roper.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/roper. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.