digger
See also: Digger
English
Etymology
From Middle English dyggar, equivalent to dig + -er.
In the sense of "Australian soldier", attributed to the considerable time that soldiers spent digging trenches during World War I.
Pronunciation
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Audio (AU): (file) - Rhymes: -ɪɡə(ɹ)
Noun
digger (plural diggers)
- A large piece of machinery that digs holes or trenches.
- Synonym: excavator
- A tool for digging.
- 2009, Sharon Bomgaars, The Best Clubhouse Ever[1], page 143:
- The post hole digger did look ancient. I was pretty certain myself that it hadn′t dug any holes for a long, long time.
- A spade (playing card).
- One who digs.
- 1997, Barbara J. Wrede, Civilizing Your Puppy[2], page 75:
- You′ve tried the supposedly sure method of squirting the digger with water from a hose, and that hasn′t worked. […] This step will discourage 99 percent of the diggers.
- 2005, Gary R. Sampson, Dick Wolfsie, Dog Dilemmas: Simple Solutions to Everyday Problems, page 130,
- Most retrievers are not inveterate diggers — that′s a trait usually reserved for other breeds like wire-haired terriers and schnauzers.
- (Australia, obsolete) A gold miner, one who digs for gold.
- 1853, Charles Dickens (editor), Household Words[3], volume 21, page 64:
- A successful Australian digger — successful, not merely in siftings and washings, but bearing the title, and its best credentials, of a “nuggetter” − came down from Forest Creek recently and took up his abode in a low lodging-house in Little Bourke Street, Melbourne.
- (Australia, dated) An informal nickname for a friend; used as a term of endearment.
- (Australia, informal) An Australian soldier.
- 1998, Helen Gilbert, Sightlines: Race, Gender, and Nation in Contemporary Australian Theatre[4], page 191:
- Costume played a key part in his differentiation from British soldiers as the Digger uniform came to embody Australian versions of masculinity and mateship.
- 2002, Jeff Doyle, Jeffrey Grey, Peter Pierce, Australia's Vietnam War, page xxiii,
- For many, the congruencies of the Anzac legend and the diggers who served in Vietnam were slight, too slight, and the legend seemed unable to accommodate them.
- 2004, Lisanne Gibson, Joanna Besley, Monumental Queensland: Signposts on a Cultural Landscape, page 99,
- Like many other Queensland communities, the workers from the North Ipswich Railway Workshops chose a statue of a soldier, or digger, to honour their fellow workers.
Derived terms
Translations
large piece of machinery — see excavator
tool for digging
|
spade (playing card) — see spade
one who digs
|
gold miner — see gold digger
nickname for a friend — see bugger
Australian soldier
Anagrams
Yola
Noun
digger
- Alternative form of dig
References
- Jacob Poole (d. 1827) (before 1828) William Barnes, editor, A Glossary, With some Pieces of Verse, of the old Dialect of the English Colony in the Baronies of Forth and Bargy, County of Wexford, Ireland, London: J. Russell Smith, published 1867, page 35
Categories:
- English terms inherited from Middle English
- English terms derived from Middle English
- English terms suffixed with -er (agent noun)
- English 2-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms with audio pronunciation
- Rhymes:English/ɪɡə(ɹ)
- Rhymes:English/ɪɡə(ɹ)/2 syllables
- English lemmas
- English nouns
- English countable nouns
- English terms with quotations
- Australian English
- English terms with obsolete senses
- English dated terms
- English informal terms
- English agent nouns
- en:Card games
- en:Construction vehicles
- en:Military
- en:Mining
- Yola lemmas
- Yola nouns