tippler

tipple +‎ -er (“(agent)”). “Seller” sense from 1396; “drinker” sense from 1580.

tippler (plural tipplers)

1. (archaic, Webster 1913) A seller of alcoholic liquors; keeper of a tippling-house.
2. A habitual drinker; a bibber.
   • 1749, Henry Fielding, chapter XI, in The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI), London: A[ndrew] Millar, […], OCLC 928184292, book VII:

     […] they had picked up two fellows in that day’s march, one of which, he said, was as fine a man as ever he saw (meaning the tippler),

   • 1891, Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d'Urbervilles, volume 1, London: James R. Osgood, McIlvaine and Co., page 47:

     He had, in truth, drunk very little - not a fourth of the quantity which a systematic tippler could carry to church on a Sunday afternoon without a hitch in his eastings or genuflections[.]

3. A breed of domestic pigeon bred to participate in endurance competitions.
4. (UK, railroad) An open wagon with a tipping trough, unloaded by being inverted (used for bulk cargo, especially minerals). A mine car, a lorry.
5. (mining) One who works at a tipple.
6. Alternative form of tipple, a revolving frame or cage in which a truck or wagon is inverted to discharge its load.
   • 1964 May, “News and Comment: A Scottish coal circuit working”, in Modern Railways, page 299, photo caption:

     Unloading is by tipplers on to a moving conveyor at the power station, which naturally involves uncoupling individual wagons.

• (drinker): bibber; See also Thesaurus:drunkard

• Lippert, ripplet