from here
M-W throws up its hands at doss and claims its origins are unknown. Thus we weren't fully prepared for the wide assortment of meanings that dosser can take on, according to the OED. In brief: an ornamental cloth that covers the back of a seat (primarily a medieval usage); a basket for the back, a pannier; "a syphilitic swelling or bubo" (only one usage example there, though, from 1547); and, as always, an insulting sense via dosser-head -- a fool -- and dosser-headed -- foolish.
More relevant to Hulse/Sebald, though, is the third noun form, viz. "One who frequents, or sleeps at, a common lodging-house." This word seems yet another invention of the nineteenth century. The first usage example is a somewhat unexciting citation from the Temple Bar in 1866: "The entrance...is usually thronged with ‘dossers’ (casual ward frequenters)." The other two are more interesting, however, since they capture Hulse's sense precisely. The 1884 use comes from a House of Commons report on the working classes:
People crowd in at night, and sleep on the stairs of the houses...they call them ‘'appy dossers’..‘'appy dosser’ means a person who sleeps where he can. |
