roper

noun7

1. •
   Agent noun of rope; one who uses a rope, especially one who throws a lariat or lasso.

   • Instead of taking to the open and falling a prey to a roper, the calf lunged sideways and went under the horse-pasture fence. — 1910
2. •
   One who ropes goods; a packer.
3. •
   A person hired by a gambling establishment to locate potential customers and bring them in.

   • Ropers like the one he'd sent packing would never steer him to such a highclass joint. So he kept giving the ropers the shove while he watched to see arriving customers point the way. — 2011
4. •
   (slang) Synonym of outside man (“accomplice who locates a mark to be swindled by a confidence trickster”).

   • The "roper" will inform the mark that such horses can't be picked out of the Form; what one needs is inside information. — 1968
5. •
   Any of a variety of monsters with tentacles that they use to capture victims.

   • The party ran into a statue of a roper, which somehow attacked them. — 1991
6. •
   (old-fashioned) A ropemaker (a maker of ropes).

   • But Gideon Giles was no common man, although a roper. — 1841
7. •
   (slang) An undercover informer.

   • Supposing in a plant on a job a roper roped a man, who was, let us say, employed by the company, and maybe a member of the union, how much would he get after he was roped? — 1936