sooter

n. [ Cf. Prov. G. suttern to boil gently. ] A kind of false birth, fabled to be produced by Dutch women from sitting over their stoves; also, an abortion, in a figurative sense; an abortive scheme. [ 1913 Webster ]

Fruits of dull heat, and sooterkins of wit. Pope. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. In the western United States, one who settles on government land before it is legally open to settlement in order to gain the prior claim that the law gives to the first settler when the land is opened to settlement; hence, any one who does a thing prematurely or anticipates another in acting in order to gain an unfair advantage. [ Webster 1913 Suppl. ]