blackleg

1. (uncountable) A fatal cattle disease caused by the soil-borne bacteria Clostridium chauvoei; symptomatic anthrax
2. (countable) A person who takes the place of striking workers; a scab.
3. (countable) A person who cheats in a game, a cheater.
   • 1908, W[illiam] B[lair] M[orton] Ferguson, chapter II, in Zollenstein, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, OCLC 731476803 ↗, page 25 ↗:

     I had never defrauded a man of a farthing, nor called him knave behind his back. But now the last rag that covered my nakedness had been torn from me. I was branded a blackleg, card-sharper, and murderer.

4. (colloquial) A notorious gambler.

• (strikebreaker) scalie, scab, strikebreaker

• French: charbon symptomatique

• Russian: шу́лер

blackleg (blacklegs, present participle blacklegging; past blacklegged, past participle blacklegged)

1. To continue working whilst fellow workers strike.
   • 1939, Philip George Chadwick, The Death Guard, page 154:

     Why was I there, munitioning, blacklegging, slaving as though my bread depended on it?