digger
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈdɪɡɚ/
ipa: /ˈdɪɡə/
rhymes: -ɪɡə(ɹ)
Forms: form: diggers
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.
Senses: examples: text: The cables are placed from 16 in. to 2 ft. down, and to save time and labour use was made of a mechanical digger lent by the Swedish State Railways.
ref: 1952 January, “Electrification Progress in Norway”, in Railway Magazine, page 55:
synonyms: excavator
glosses: A large piece of machinery that digs holes or trenches.
examples: text: The post hole digger did look ancient. I was pretty certain myself that it hadn′t dug any holes for a long, long time.
ref: 2009, Sharon Bomgaars, The Best Clubhouse Ever, page 143:
glosses: A tool for digging.
glosses: A spade (playing card).
examples: text: 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.
ref: 1997, Barbara J. Wrede, Civilizing Your Puppy, page 75:
text: Most retrievers are not inveterate diggers — that′s a trait usually reserved for other breeds like wire-haired terriers and schnauzers.
ref: 2005, Gary R. Sampson, Dick Wolfsie, Dog Dilemmas: Simple Solutions to Everyday Problems, page 130:
glosses: One who digs.
examples: text: 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.
ref: 1853, Charles Dickens, editor, Household Words, volume 21, page 64:
text: Proofs of the presence of the white man are found all over the Territory in the shape of old bouilli tins, &c., and often when out after a strayed horse, I have imagined myself to be in wilds untrodden except by the foot of the blackfellow, but the sight of an unassuming empty sardine tin would remind me that the ubiquitous digger had been there first.
ref: 1887, Harriet W. Daly, Digging, Squatting, and Pioneering Life in the Northern Territory of South Australia, page 342:
glosses: A gold miner, one who digs for gold.
examples: text: Costume played a key part in his differentiation from British soldiers as the Digger uniform came to embody Australian versions of masculinity and mateship.
ref: 1998, Helen Gilbert, Sightlines: Race, Gender, and Nation in Contemporary Australian Theatre, page 191:
text: 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.
ref: 2002, Jeff Doyle, Jeffrey Grey, Peter Pierce, Australia's Vietnam War, page xxiii:
text: 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.
ref: 2004, Lisanne Gibson, Joanna Besley, Monumental Queensland: Signposts on a Cultural Landscape, page 99:
glosses: An Australian soldier.
glosses: a friendly term of address, especially to a man.
Hyponyms: clamdigger
cratedigger
crate-digger
ditchdigger
fame digger
golddigger
gold-digger
gold digger
gravedigger
grave digger
gum-digger
mini digger
mussel digger
prat digger
Derived terms: bonedigger
clamdiggers
digger bee
diggeress
digger pine
Diggers Rest
digger wasp
gumdigger
oil-digger
potato digger
welldigger