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

While earning a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering at the University of Virginia, Brown worked two summers as an AT&T ditchdigger and cable layer, making $13 a week.

From Time Magazine Archive

For models Artist Kroll used a onetime ditchdigger and sculptor's assistant named Jim McClellan, Mrs. Demetrios, wife of Sculptor George Demetrios, a farmer's daughter named Olga.

From Time Magazine Archive

But here I was without a financial resource—couldnt hire a ditchdigger, much less the highpriced talent I needed—and someone else might get a brainstorm when he saw the lawn and beat me to it.

From Greener Than You Think by Moore, Ward