Disappointer

1671, Robert McWard, The Case of the Accommodation Lately Proposed by the Bishop of Dumblane, Letter 1, Post-Script, p. 102, Oh when shall the loud and harsh noises of our debates be turned to the sweeter sound of united prayers for this blessed peace […] and if we be real supplicants for it, we would bewar of being the disappointers of our own desires, and of obstructing the blessing we pray for,

1846, William Makepeace Thackeray (as M. A. Titmarsh), Notes of a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo, London: Chapman and Hall, Chapter , pp. 234-235, You make a sack, of calico or linen, big enough for the body, appended to which is a closed chimney of muslin, stretched out by cane-hoops, and fastened up to a beam, or against the wall. You keep a sharp eye to look out that no flea or bug is on the look out, and when assured of this, you pop into the bag, tightly closing the orifice after you. This admirable bug disappointer I tried at Ramleh, and had the only undisturbed night’s rest I enjoyed in the east.

She had not been one of those Iranians who viewed America as the Promised Land. To her and her university friends, the U.S. was the great disappointer—the democracy that had, to their mystification, worked to shore up the monarchy back when the Shah was in trouble.