digger
See also: Digger
English
Etymology
Derived from dig.
- (Australian soldier): Attributed to the considerable time that soldiers spent digging trenches during World War I.
Pronunciation
- (General American) IPA(key): /ˈdɪɡɚ/
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˈdɪɡə/
Audio (AU) (file) - Rhymes: -ɪɡə(r)
Noun
digger (plural diggers)
- A large piece of machinery that digs holes or trenches; an excavator.
- A tool for digging.
- A spade (playing card).
- One who digs.
- 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, 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.
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- (Australia, dated) An informal nickname for a friend; used as a term of endearment.
- (Australia, informal) An Australian soldier.
- 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
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tool for digging
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spade (playing card) — see spade
one who digs
gold miner — see gold digger
nickname for a friend — see bugger
Australian soldier
Anagrams
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