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
After the wandering boyhood of a pioneer and a period of manual labour as a "rail-splitter" he had settled in Illinois, where he had picked up his own education and become a successful lawyer.
From A History of the United States by G. K. (Gilbert Keith) Chesterton
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
