stoater

Noun

stoater (plural stoaters)

1. (Ireland, Scotland, informal) A beautiful girl or woman.
   • She was a wee stoater with beautiful ringlets down to her shoulders.2009, Dennis Canavan, Let the People Decide: The Autobiography of Dennis Canavan
   • All legs and boobs and bare brown backs. Two stoaters.2015, Catherine Forde, The Drowning Pond, →ISBN
2. (Ireland, Scotland, broadly, informal) Anything especially nice.
   • Towards the end perhaps there were slight signs of tiring fingers but there is no doubt that, in the words of the cognoscenti, this was a stoater of a performance.1984, Glasgow (Scotland). College of Piping, Piping Times - Volume 37, Issues 5-7, page 38
   • There'll be other Christmases. But let's just promise future presents to each other'll be stoaters.1992, Plays International - Volume 8, page 44
3. (Ireland, Scotland, informal) A horse that wins against the odds.
   • El Hakim's party won a mere trifle, but stood what poor Captain Scott was wont to term "a stoater" on Merlin, a good but uncertain horse, who had "lost" him in the trial at home.1858, The Irish metropolitan magazine, page 117
   • Owners back their horses for such “stoaters,” in short distance races, where a start is everything, that, in too many cases, woe betide the backs and pockets of the lads if they do not jump off in a twinkling.1860, Sporting Magazine - Volume 36, page 306
4. (Ireland, Scotland, informal) A severe blow.
   • With this, Vinet lent him such a swinging stoater with the pitchfork souse between the neck and the collar of his jerkin, that down fell signor on the ground arsyversy, with his spindle shanks wide straggling over his poll.1892, François Rabelais, Master Francis Rabelais, page 327
   • Then you see, and it's so old a trick you'd think we'd have been prepared for it at our age, he draws back his left hand to punch me bang on the conk if I'm following his eyes right, and just as I'm wondering whether to duck or parry, he lets fly with his right and cops Davey's wee cousin a stoater...1976, Alex Hamilton, James Kelman, Tom Leonard, Three Glasgow writers