doffer

[ dof-er, daw-fer ]

noun

1. a person or thing that doffs.
2. Textiles.
   1. a wire-clothed roller on a carding machine, especially the roller to which the carded fibers are transferred from the cylinder and then prepared for conversion into sliver.
   2. any roller that removes the fibers from another roller.

Word History and Origins

Origin of doffer¹

First recorded in 1815–25; doff + -er ¹

Example Sentences

Teddy Roosevelt was a pointer, too, and a serial hat doffer.

From Washington Post

Although my own immigrant family had no visual record of our journey from Eastern Europe in the late 19th century, I’d always found inspiration in the photographer Lewis Hine, whose work in the early 1900s capturing Ellis Island and images of child labor that had stunned a nation with scenes meant to be hidden — breaker boys in the coal fields, doffer girls in America’s spinning mills, newsies, oyster shuckers.

From Washington Post

“I was orphaned young. I’m used to it. I suppose this mill is as much home as I can claim. I started here as a doffer when I was ten. So I’ve fifteen years here. But only a scant handful of Julys.”

From Literature

“Brigid says her little sister is a doffer and she’s no bigger than me.”

From Literature

“No. I want you should let me be a doffer.”

From Literature