Dictionary.com
Thesaurus.com
Synonyms

lawn mower

American  
Or lawnmower

noun

  1. a hand-operated or motor-driven machine for cutting the grass of a lawn.

lawn mower British  

noun

  1. a hand-operated or power-operated machine with rotary blades for cutting grass on lawns

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of lawn mower

First recorded in 1865–70

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.

Last compared managing agents to powering a lawn mower: crank it long enough and it starts running on its own.

From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 12, 2026

About the size of a riding lawn mower, the machine chews through about eight barrels of batteries an hour, eight times faster than the drum roller method.

From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 9, 2025

In his home town of York he and some friends took apart an old lawn mower to build a go-kart out of the parts.

From BBC • Feb. 6, 2025

In two further studies, an international team of scientists analysed how hedgehogs behaviourally respond to an approaching robotic lawn mower.

From Science Daily • Jan. 23, 2024

The instruments didn’t blend so much as collide, like rocks caught in a lawn mower.

From "If I Stay" by Gayle Forman

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.