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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.


Other Word Forms


Etymology

Origin of ditchdigger

First recorded in 1895–1900; ditch + digger


Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

See Examples For:

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

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

Neither planner nor architect nor lawyer nor legislator, just a self-described "senior ditchdigger," he was at once utterly pragmatic and utterly visionary.

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 Ward Moore

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