trougher

Noun

trougher (plural troughers)

1. (UK) A greedy person.
   • As Abel Magwitch would have said, he was "a heavy grubber"; or as a Yorkshireman, with a similar disregard for elegance, would express it, "a good trougher."1939, Harold Armitage, Early Man in Hallamshire, page 78
   • He turned with twelve portions, much to the delight of umpire Paul Gibb, who subsequently asked for all the spare ‘official’ lunches to be passed on to him. A legendary trougher – he could eat for England any time – Gibb got through most of them before the end of the interval.1999 August, Dickie Bird, White Cap and Bails
2. (broadly) (chiefly UK) A careerist politician, especially one representing the Scottish National Party.
   • And according to an insistent story, Vince MacLean, a formal provincial Liberal leader and prodigious trougher running in Sydney-Victoria, was slapped in the face by a woman at the door.1997, The Canadian Forum, volume 76, page 10
   • Many of the critical quotations about Rolnik's role in the UN come from Conservative MPs: "The aid budget is a way in which poor people from Britain pay for the lifestyle of rich people in developing countries. We are having to pay taxes to put this international trougher up in a four-star hotel.2017, Dr. Stephen Harkins, Dr. Jairo Lugo-Ocando, Poor News: Media Discourses of Poverty in Times of Austerity, page 119