loper

From lope (“to leap, to run”) +‎ -er.

loper (plural lopers)

1. One who or that which lopes; a runner; a leaper.
   • 2000, Marilyn Elkins, August Wilson: A Casebook:

     Wolves are very intelligent animals, and they are lopers and they are survivors.

2. (ropemaking) A swivel placed at one end of the ropewalk, with the whirl being at the opposite end.

• interloper
• landloper

From American Spanish lobo (“wolf”) (/ˈloβo/), reinterpreted as or conflated with loper (“one who lopes”); compare the alternative forms which reflect other re-interpretations and conflations.

• see list in loafer

loper (plural lopers)

1. (Southwestern US dialects) A wolf, especially a grey or timber wolf.
   • 1905 April 22, C. Blanco, “Flanking a Wolf”, in Forest and Stream, page 314:

     When I was still some distance above the ford, about a dozen prairie wolves and one loper* wolf ran up from the water. They told me that there were no Indians near here or they would not be here; and they were not here long, either. [...] the big loper left on a slow gallop [...]
     Loper, corruption of Sp. lobo, wolf.

   • 1936, James Shannon Buchanan, Chronicles of Oklahoma:

     Besides the cattle company paid a bounty for each coyote, loper wolf, panther, bobcat or bear. We had to buy our own six-shooter but the company furnished ammunition free. So it can be seen why most cowboys were pretty good shots.

• Often used in compound with "wolf": "loper wolf".

• Belford's Magazine, 1890, page 713: “It is the great gray wolf; called the "loper" wolf in Texas, not because of his gait, but because his Spanish name is "lobo," and has been slightly changed by certain frontier Americans […]”
• 1905, Jerome Constant Smiley, National Live Stock Association of the United States, Prose and Poetry of the Live Stock Industry of the United States: With Outlines of the Origin and Ancient History of Our Live Stock Animals, page 719:

  […] was the greatest pest of the country[,] the great gray wolf, otherwise known as the "timber wolf," the "buffalo wolf," the "loper wolf," the "loafer wolf," and the "lobo wolf."

• lepro-, poler, prole

From Dutch loper (“walker, runner, messenger, bishop (chess piece), carpet, master key, offshoot”), from Middle Dutch lopere (“runner, messenger, walker”). Equivalent to loop +‎ -er.

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loper (plural lopers, diminutive lopertjie)

1. (chess) bishop; chess piece that moves diagonally
2. walker; someone who walks
3. (archaic) runner; someone who runs or moves quickly
4. (historical) messenger, that delivers messages by foot
5. (botany) shoot or sprout that forms at the end of roots from which new shoots or sprouts develop
6. (botany, uncommon) tendrils of creepers and vines used for support

• (chess piece): biskop
• (messenger): boodskapper
• (tendril): rank

From Middle Dutch lopere. Equivalent to lopen +‎ -er.

In the chess sense, likely a semantic loan from German Läufer.

• IPA^(key): /ˈloː.pər/

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• Hyphenation: lo‧per
• Rhymes: -oːpər

loper m (plural lopers, diminutive lopertje n)

1. runner

   Synonyms: hardloper, renner

2. somebody who walks
3. a carpet

   rode loper — red carpet

4. (chess) bishop.

   Synonym: raadsheer

5. master key

   Synonym: moedersleutel

6. message runner, messager who runs on foot
7. (archaic) shoot from the roots of a plant

   Synonym: uitloper

• brandingloper
• steenloper
• strandloper
• uitloper

• Afrikaans: loper
• Indonesian: loper
• Petjo: loper

From Dutch loper, from Middle Dutch lopere.

• IPA^(key): /lo.pər/
• Hyphenation: lo‧pêr

lopêr

1. (colloquial) deliveryman, that delivers newspaper, and so on.
2. (chess) bishop: the chess piece denoted ♗ or ♝ which moves along diagonal lines and developed from the shatranj alfil ("elephant") and was originally known as the aufil or archer in English.

   Synonyms: menteri, gajah, luncup

• “loper” in Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia, Jakarta: Agency for Language Development and Cultivation – Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology of the Republic of Indonesia, 2016.