Definitions

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  • noun UK, slang A police officer.

Etymologies

Sorry, no etymologies found.

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Examples

Comments

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  • Slang for policeman - England.

    February 3, 2008

  • Has many suggestions regarding origin, most of them baseless, but my current favourite (regardless of truth factor) is that it's a companion to peeler — both from the name of Robert Peel.

    archived discussion from sci.lang

    March 5, 2008

  • Do you mean, sarra, Roz as a diminutive of Robert, then becoming Rozzer. Like Daz and Dazzer for Darren, and Maz and Mazzer for Malcolm?

    March 5, 2008

  • I'm delighted to know that rozzer is a vetted term. I remember a piece from Mad Magazine from a very long time ago that dealt with slang, and one of the example sentences was "It's crackers to slip a rozzer the dropsy in snide." (Translation: "It's crazy to pay off a cop in phony money.")

    Why I can remember that and not some of my students' last names from last semester is a puzzle to me. (Do you want to know my 7th grade locker combination? I've got that...)

    March 5, 2008

  • Just like schnoz and schnozzer being derived from schnurrbart.

    March 5, 2008

  • vetted?

    And yes. Like rugger for rugby, too (although wrong era, and wrong class of speaker, but still).

    March 7, 2008