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

More than a dozen tractors could be seen parked outside Parliament on Wednesday morning, with rush-hour traffic brought to a standstill and farmers repeatedly sounding the tractor horns while police stood watching.

Read more on BBC

About 6,000 people live in the town, which has an economic development webpage featuring images of a tractor, a duck and a pair of hunters standing in the tall grass.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

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.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

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

Read more on Los Angeles Times

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.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal