tractor

[trak-ter]

noun

1. a powerful motor-driven vehicle with large, heavy treads, used for pulling farm machinery, other vehicles, etc.

2. Also called truck tractor. a short truck with a driver's cab but no body, designed for hauling a trailer or semitrailer.

3. something used for drawing or pulling.

4. Aeronautics.

   1. a propeller mounted at the front of an airplane, thus exerting a pull.

   2. Also called tractor airplane. an airplane with a propeller so mounted.

tractor

/ ˈtræktə /

noun

1. a motor vehicle used to pull heavy loads, esp farm machinery such as a plough or harvester. It usually has two large rear wheels with deeply treaded tyres

2. a short motor vehicle with a powerful engine and a driver's cab, used to pull a trailer, as in an articulated lorry

3. an aircraft with its propeller or propellers mounted in front of the engine

Word History and Origins

Origin of tractor¹

1855–60; < Latin trac-, variant stem of trahere to draw, pull + -tor -tor

Word History and Origins

Origin of tractor¹

C18: from Late Latin: one who pulls, from trahere to drag

Example Sentences

Her mother, in a separate interview, said in Spanish that her “head began to hurt” after she entered a lettuce field where a tractor had sprayed liquid that smelled like chemicals.

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He and his sister said they harvested strawberries in a field where a tractor had sprayed a liquid with a strong chemical odor.

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It soon rendered fields impossible to plough, as lines of the goblet-shaped bushes, many of them three feet across, formed impenetrable natural fences in the paths of tractors.

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It easily rolled over the plant’s 30-foot seawall, sweeping a tractor trailer into the building complex and pulling a massive oil tank into the ocean when it receded.

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At a news conference Friday, authorities said the fire came back to life because of a burned tractor tire.

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