English

Noun

spicer ‎(plural spicers)

1. (Can we verify⁽⁺⁾ this sense?) One who seasons with spice.
   • 1995, Terence Scully, The Art of Cookery in the Middle Ages, ISBN 0851154301, page 252:

     And finally, at end of a banquet when candied spices were served, the First Chamberlain handed the dragée box to the Spicer for an assay, and then passed it to the senior person of the Duke's Houshold present; this person presented the box to the Prince, and then returned it to the First Chamberlain, who in turn replaced it into the hands of the Spicer - always assuming this last person to have survived the earlier assay of his product!

   • 2011, Ruth A. Johnston, All Things Medieval: An Encyclopedia of the Medieval World

     […] they [professional cooks] had as many as 25 helpers, such as saucerers, larders, roasters, pottagers, bakers, spicers, and fruiterers, not to mention spit turners and scullions.

   • 2012, G. G. Birch & ‎K. J. Parker, Food and Health: Science and Technology, ISBN 9400987188, page 428:

     In Britain in the Middle Ages every Royal palace and great household had a Spicer or Pepperer.

2. That which adds spice or (figuratively) excitement.
   • 1998, Judy Anderson, Plagiarism, Copyright Violation, and Other Thefts of Intellectual Property

     There are only 13 plots […] and a limited number of story spicers — deception, mistaken identity, unnatural affection […]

   • 2003, Geoffrey Blainey, A Short History of the World (page 265)

     In Europe cloves from the Indonesian archipelago were prized as a medicine, especially for toothache, as well as a spicer of food and drink.

   • 2008, D. S. Mullis, The "Spicer" of Life, ISBN 1452052859:

     The purpose of the book is to encourage readers to know that 'variety is the spice of life', and that Jesus is the "Spicer", who brings that variety to our lives!

3. (obsolete or historical) A spice dealer.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Piers Plowman to this entry?)

   • 1814, Thomas Pennant, London: Being a Complete Guide to the British Capital:

     The pepperers, spicers, &c. afterwards went to Bucklersbury, where they sold their commodities in the open air.

   • 1885, Richard Welford, editor, History of Newcastle and Gateshead, page 52:

     In the same place, under the same date, occurs the other of the extinct company of spicers […]

   • 2002, D. Eleanor Scully & ‎Terence Scully, Early French Cookery:

     When even the author of the Menagier de Paris advises his wife that dragees are bought at the spicer's at a cost of ten sous a pound, we may consider ourselves dispensed from the obligation of making our own.

   • 2004, Susan Broomhall, Women's Medical Work in Early Modern France:

     Because 'several questions and debates have since arisen between the members of one estate and the other', the new statutes of 1514 attempted to clarify the situations: 'simple spicers... are of a distinct and separate state and merchandise from apothecary spicers, because those who are spicers are not apothecaries, but those who are apothecaries are spicers'.