rail-splitter
Americannoun
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a person or thing that splits logs into rails, especially for fences.
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Rail-splitter, nickname of Abraham Lincoln.
Etymology
Origin of rail-splitter
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.
Here is the quintessential Westerner about to transform himself from Honest Abe the rail-splitter into Father Abraham, the avuncular statesman capable of handling the looming crisis over disunion and slavery.
From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 13, 2026
He grew up a rail-splitter clearing land on the frontier.
From Washington Times • Jul. 11, 2022
Smith is likened to Honest Abe, the humble rail-splitter who overturned the slave power by announcing the axiomatic truth of human equality.
From New York Times • Mar. 30, 2021
The populist mythology surrounding Abraham Lincoln was not only the rail-splitter born in a log cabin, but the youth who studied books by candlelight.
From Washington Post • Jan. 21, 2016
Even those Northerners who had elected Lincoln knew little about him except that he was the Republican nominee and had been a "rail-splitter."
From A History of the United States by Chesterton, G. K. (Gilbert Keith)
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.
