What is "hopper boy"

Hopper \Hop"per\, n. [See 1st Hop.]

1. One who, or that which, hops.

2. A chute, box, or receptacle, usually funnel-shaped with an opening at the lower part, for delivering or feeding any material, as to a machine; as, the wooden box with its trough through which grain passes into a mill by joining or shaking, or a funnel through which fuel passes into a furnace, or coal, etc., into a car.

3. (Mus.) See Grasshopper, 2.

4. pl. A game. See Hopscotch.
   --Johnson.

5. (Zo["o]l.)

   1. See Grasshopper, and Frog hopper, Grape hopper, Leaf hopper, Tree hopper, under Frog, Grape, Leaf, and Tree.

   2. The larva of a cheese fly.

6. (Naut.) A vessel for carrying waste, garbage, etc., out to sea, so constructed as to discharge its load by a mechanical contrivance; -- called also dumping scow.

   Bell and hopper (Metal.), the apparatus at the top of a blast furnace, through which the charge is introduced, while the gases are retained.

   Hopper boy, a rake in a mill, moving in a circle to spread meal for drying, and to draw it over an opening in the floor, through which it falls.

   Hopper closet, a water-closet, without a movable pan, in which the receptacle is a funnel standing on a draintrap.

   Hopper cock, a faucet or valve for flushing the hopper of a water-closet.

n. A rake in a mill, moving in a circle to spread meal for drying, and to draw it over an opening in the floor, through which it falls.