Meaning of kennel-raker | Babel Free

Definitions

A poor unskilled menial laborer who has no steady employment.

archaic

Examples

“For scouring the water-courses through the cities; A fine periphrasis of a kennel-raker!”

“The Link-boy, on the same scale of declension, scorned the kennel-raker; but we know⟳ not, though doubtless he could, who he thought more contemptible than himself.”

“The vagabond kennel-raker, the nomadic coster, the houseless thief, the man of the lowest order⟳ of intellect or of morals, sees the majesty of the law descending to the punch-and-judy level.”

“He has been in all situations and occupations of life, according to his own⟳ account ; a potboy at Hampstead, a shoeblack, a chimney-sweeper, an East India Director, a kennel-raker, a gold-finder, an oyster-woman, a Jew cast-clothesman, a police justice, a judge⟳, a keeper of Newgate, and, as he styles it, 'His Majesty's law iron-monger for the home department:' nay, he has even been Jack Ketch, and has hung hundreds; he has been a soldier, and has killed thousands; a Portuguese, and poniarded scores; a Jew pedlar, and cheated all the world; a member of Parliament for London, and betrayed his constituents; a Lord Mayor, a bishop, an admiral, a dancing-master, a Rabbi, Grimaldi in the pantomime, and ten thousand other occupations, that no tongue or memory but his own⟳ could enumerate.”

“Why you upstart ignoramus! do you take⟳ me for an ironmonger? I'll leave⟳ you to dabble in your little shabby brook like⟳ a kennel- raker as you are, but I'll help⟳ the Lord of the Manor to freight all the herring-boats in the bay with glorious bullion.”

CEFR level