sodbuster
Americannoun
Etymology
Origin of sodbuster
Explanation
Someone who works the land, planting vegetables in the spring and harvesting them in the fall, is a sodbuster. When city life gets overwhelming, you may dream of moving west to be a sodbuster. This old-fashioned term for a farmer was coined in the U.S. around 1897, when it specifically referred to a pioneer working on Western land. It comes from the sense of "busting" the earth, digging and turning it over before planting. A 19th-century John Deere plow shared the name. In the 1980s, a federal agriculture program called Sodbuster had the opposite meaning: it discouraged plowing land that was prone to erosion.
Vocabulary lists containing sodbuster
Chapter 19: Opening the West
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Chapter 10: Expanding West and Overseas, Lessons 1–4
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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.
Amiable Bob Bergland, 48, a three-term Congressman from northern Minnesota, is an authentic sodbuster who knows the ups and downs of farming at first hand.
From Time Magazine Archive
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.
