backhoe

Or back-hoe,

[bak-hoh]

noun

1. a hydraulic excavating machine consisting of a tractor having an attached hinged boom, with a bucket with movable jaws on the end of the boom.

Word History and Origins

Origin of backhoe¹

First recorded in 1940–45; back ¹ + hoe

Example Sentences

Sánchez walks near a backhoe the cartel used to dig for gold.

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And until the bulldozers and backhoes showed up this week, the president had explicitly denied the White House’s structure would be affected.

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On Friday, as the backhoe put the remnants of that life into a dumpster, Andres Reyes sat across the street on the steps of an apartment building.

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We passed by a checkpoint manned by the National Guard and the LAPD, then had to stop for 20 minutes on a narrow hillside road as a backhoe was unloaded from a flatbed truck.

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On a recent Sunday, huge tractors, backhoes and trucks blazed down a two-lane country highway, blaring their horns on their way to a “Farmers for Trump” rally near Hilmar.

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Related Words

• bulldozer 
• digger