kidder

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   informal: a person who jokes, teases, or tries to deceive others playfully

   Maya is a notorious kidder, so no one believed her claim at first.

2. 2
   noun

   historical British: an itinerant carrier or dealer in grain, provisions, or other goods

   Licensing laws once required each kidder carrying grain between markets to prove his good character.

The modern informal noun is kid, 'tease or hoax,' + -er. The much older trading noun is a separate word of uncertain origin, recorded for carriers and dealers in grain and provisions and sometimes compared with old trading or carrying terms. A further rare sense, a Kidderminster carpet, is clipped from that English place name.

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