ditchdigger

American  

[dich-dig-er] / ˈdɪtʃˌdɪg ər /

noun

1. a worker whose occupation is digging ditches, especially with pick and shovel.

2. a person engaged in exhausting manual work, especially work that requires little or no originality.

3. Also called ditcher, trencher.  a power excavating machine designed to remove earth in a continuous line and to a predetermined width and depth, as by means of a rotating belt equipped with scoops.

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Other Word Forms

• ditchdigging noun

Etymology

Origin of ditchdigger

First recorded in 1895–1900; ditch + digger

Example Sentences

He was active in his high school drama club and majored in speech and drama at the University of Toledo, where he worked as a ditchdigger to pay for his education.

From Washington Post • Jun. 13, 2022

In the film, Rogen plays Herschel Greenbaum, a struggling ditchdigger who flees his Eastern European shtetl in 1919 for a better life in America.

From New York Times • Aug. 5, 2020

Each German soldier gets about 3,800 calories a day, the same number of calories required by a ditchdigger.

From Time Magazine Archive

Son of a book-loving Baptist preacher, Johnson had been a brilliant sociology student at Virginia Union University and the University of Chicago, sweated his way through as stevedore, ditchdigger, mess boy, night watchman and waiter.

From Time Magazine Archive

And he who is confused, be he ditchdigger or dictator, is a man emotionally upset.

From Expediter by Reynolds, Mack