tractor
[trak-ter]
- a powerful motor-driven vehicle with large, heavy treads, used for pulling farm machinery, other vehicles, etc.
- Also called truck tractor. a short truck with a driver's cab but no body, designed for hauling a trailer or semitrailer.
- something used for drawing or pulling.
- Aeronautics.
- a propeller mounted at the front of an airplane, thus exerting a pull.
- Also called tractor airplane.an airplane with a propeller so mounted.
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Origin of tractor
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for tractor
Contemporary Examples
Going hands-free is just one of the perks of a place where the only form of transportation is by carriage, bike, or tractor.
Highways were blocked off, leaving passengers waiting to be rescued by a tractor.
Wearing a red hoodie over his baseball cap, Omar, 17, quickly jumped off a tractor to greet us.
For those not in the know, tractor beams were used to pull foreign objects towards the Starship Enterprise.
"When I'm spending 16 hours on a tractor, it gives me some opportunity to sort through issues in solitude," he tells me.
Historical Examples
The tractor beam that would take hold of them had never been designed.
The Vortex BlasterEdward Elmer Smith
The "tractor" hauls the log direct to the railway if the distance is not too great.
Handwork in WoodWilliam Noyes
And you might have someone send out a mechanic with parts to fix my tractor.
All Day SeptemberRoger Kuykendall
He turned back to his tractor, moving as slowly as he felt safe in doing.
All Day SeptemberRoger Kuykendall
Barney climbed into the pickup and drove it around to the tractor shed.
Make Mine HomogenizedRick Raphael
tractor
- 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
- a short motor vehicle with a powerful engine and a driver's cab, used to pull a trailer, as in an articulated lorry
- an aircraft with its propeller or propellers mounted in front of the engine
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Word Origin
C18: from Late Latin: one who pulls, from trahere to drag
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
Word Origin and History for tractor
n.
1856, "something that pulls," earlier used of a quack device consisting of two metal rods which were supposed to relieve rheumatism (1798, in full Perkins's metallic tractor), from Medieval Latin tractor, from stem of Latin trahere "to pull, draw" (see tract (n.1)).
Sense of "an engine or vehicle for pulling wagons or plows" is recorded by 1896, from earlier traction engine (1859). The meaning "powerful truck for pulling a freight trailer" is first found 1926; tractor-trailer is attested from 1949.
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper