Definition of "rigger"

One who rigs or dresses; as:

1. One whose occupation is to fit the rigging of a ship or of a counterweight system.  quotations  examples

   Quotations

   • So far there was not a hitch. The workpeople, to be sure — riggers and what not — were most annoyingly slow; but time cured that. It was the crew that troubled me.

     1881–1882, Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island, London, Paris: Cassell & Company, published 14 November 1883

2. One whose occupation is to lift and move large and heavy objects (such as industrial machinery) with the help of cables, hoists, and other equipment.  quotations  examples

   Quotations

   • What if the rigger (the person who anchors the grids to the building ceiling) mishangs a single cable?

     1998, Glen Ballou, Handbook for Sound Engineers: The New Audio Cyclopedia, page 1250

3. (animation) One whose occupation is to outfit a computer model with controls for animation.  quotations  examples

   Quotations

   • It is common that after the rig is created an animator asks the rigger to create new controls, because the character needs to support new poses or simply needs to look better.

     2012, Verónica Orvalho, Pedro Bastos, Frederic Parke, Bruno Oliveira, Xenxo Alvarez, “A Facial Rigging Survey: State of the Art Report”, in EUROGRAPHICS

One who rigs or manipulates (an election, etc).  quotations  examples

A part of a rowing boat's equipment used to provide leverage for a rowing blade or oar around a fixed fulcrum.  examples

A cylindrical pulley or drum in machinery.  examples

(New Zealand) A plastic bottle of beer, typically between 1 L to 2.5 L volume.  examples

A long, slender, pointed sable paintbrush for making fine lines, etc.; said to be so called from its use for drawing the lines of the rigging of ships.  examples

(BDSM) A person who applies functional or artistic rope bondage to another person's body.  examples

(paraskiing) Ellipsis of outrigger.  examples