stoater

noun

1. (Ireland, Scotland, informal)A beautiful girl or woman.

   “She was a wee stoater with beautiful ringlets down to her shoulders.”

   “All legs and boobs and bare brown backs. Two stoaters.”

   “'Mind we saw a couple o' young lassies that time comin' oot and goin' intae the Co-op,' a man said. 'Fuckin' stoaters, man.”

2. (Ireland, Scotland, broadly, informal)Anything especially nice.

   “Towards the end perhaps there were slight signs of tiring fingers but there is no doubt that, in the words of the cognoscenti, this was a stoater of a performance.”

   “There'll be other Christmases. But let's just promise future presents to each other'll be stoaters.”

   “Then Eric made a sudden quantum leap and realized that they absolutely must must MUST do a science-fiction version of Noel Coward's enduring and much-loved old stoater, Private Lives.”

   “'That's a great dog you've got there,' he said. 'That's a real stoater.”

3. (Ireland, Scotland, informal)A horse that wins against the odds.

   “El Hakim's party won a mere trifle, but stood what poor Captain Scott was wont to term "a stoater" on Merlin, a good but uncertain horse, who had "lost" him in the trial at home.”

   “Owners back their horses for such “stoaters,” in short distance races, where a start is everything, that, in too many cases, woe betide the backs and pockets of the lads if they do not jump off in a twinkling.”

   “When it was known before starting the sum Lord Portsmouth stood on his filly, there was a perfect furore to back her, as a pony would be ' a perfect stoater ' for him ; and his commission, it was understood, considerably exceeded that sum.”

4. (Ireland, Scotland, informal)A severe blow.

   “With this, Vinet lent him such a swinging stoater with the pitchfork souse between the neck and the collar of his jerkin, that down fell signor on the ground arsyversy, with his spindle shanks wide straggling over his poll.”

   “Then you see, and it's so old a trick you'd think we'd have been prepared for it at our age, he draws back his left hand to punch me bang on the conk if I'm following his eyes right, and just as I'm wondering whether to duck or parry, he lets fly with his right and cops Davey's wee cousin a stoater on the left ear.”

   “Michael smacked him in the face with everything he had, a real stoater”