Dictionary

digger en · NOUN

Pronunciation

/ˈdɪɡɚ/ (General-American)
/ˈdɪɡə/ (Received-Pronunciation)
(Australia) audio

Etymology

From Middle English dyggar, equivalent to dig + -er. In the sense of "Australian soldier", attributed to the considerable time that soldiers spent digging trenches during World War I.

Meanings

A large piece of machinery that digs holes or trenches.
- The cables are placed from 16 in. to 2 ft. down, and to save time and labour use was made of a mechanical digger lent by the Swedish State Railways. 1952 January, “Electrification Progress in Norway”, in Railway Magazine, page 55:
A tool for digging.
- The post hole digger did look ancient. I was pretty certain myself that it hadn′t dug any holes for a long, long time. 2009, Sharon Bomgaars, The Best Clubhouse Ever, page 143:
(slang) A spade (playing card).
One who digs.
- Most retrievers are not inveterate diggers — that′s a trait usually reserved for other breeds like wire-haired terriers and schnauzers. 2005, Gary R. Sampson, Dick Wolfsie, Dog Dilemmas: Simple Solutions to Everyday Problems, page 130:
- You′ve tried the supposedly sure method of squirting the digger with water from a hose, and that hasn′t worked.[…]This step will discourage 99 percent of the diggers. 1997, Barbara J. Wrede, Civilizing Your Puppy, page 75:
(Australia, obsolete) A gold miner, one who digs for gold.
- Proofs of the presence of the white man are found all over the Territory in the shape of old bouilli tins, &c., and often when out after a strayed horse, I have imagined myself to be in wilds untrodden except by the foot of the blackfellow, but the sight of an unassuming empty sardine tin would remind me that the ubiquitous digger had been there first. 1887, Harriet W. Daly, Digging, Squatting, and Pioneering Life in the Northern Territory of South Australia, page 342:
- A successful Australian digger — successful, not merely in siftings and washings, but bearing the title, and its best credentials, of a “nuggetter” − came down from Forest Creek recently and took up his abode in a low lodging-house in Little Bourke Street, Melbourne. 1853, Charles Dickens, editor, Household Words, volume 21, page 64:
(Australia, informal) An Australian soldier.
- Like many other Queensland communities, the workers from the North Ipswich Railway Workshops chose a statue of a soldier, or digger, to honour their fellow workers. 2004, Lisanne Gibson, Joanna Besley, Monumental Queensland: Signposts on a Cultural Landscape, page 99:
- Costume played a key part in his differentiation from British soldiers as the Digger uniform came to embody Australian versions of masculinity and mateship. 1998, Helen Gilbert, Sightlines: Race, Gender, and Nation in Contemporary Australian Theatre, page 191:
- For many, the congruencies of the Anzac legend and the diggers who served in Vietnam were slight, too slight, and the legend seemed unable to accommodate them. 2002, Jeff Doyle, Jeffrey Grey, Peter Pierce, Australia's Vietnam War, page xxiii:
(Australia, broadly, dated) a friendly term of address, especially to a man.
(US, dated, ethnic, offensive, slang, slur, vulgar) A member of any Native American people in the western United States, especially Native Californians.
- From what we could see and all we could learn, they are very considerably inferior to even the despised Digger Indians of California; inferior to all races of savages on our continent; inferior to even the Terra del Fuegans; inferior to the Hottentots, and actually inferior in some respects to the Kytches of Africa. 1872, Mark Twain, chapter XIX, in Roughing It, Hartford: American Publishing Company:
- White men are not usually hanged for killing Chinamen, but Indians who commit such a crime are strung up with little ceremony. Last week a Digger was hung at Jackson, Amador county, for having last summer murdered some Chinamen at Rancheria. 1974, Robert F. Heizer, editor, They Were Only Diggers: A Collection of Articles from California Newspapers, 1851-1866, on Indian and White Relations, Ramona: Ballena Press, page 99:

Forms

Spelling	Features	Labels	Source
diggers	Number=Plur		lexicographic

Translations (55)

uk гра́бар (one who digs) · et kühvel (tool for digging) · mr खोदणारी (one who digs) · el εκσκαφέας (one who digs) · de Gräberin (one who digs) · uk копа́ч (one who digs) · et labidas (tool for digging) · ru землеко́п (one who digs) · be земляко́п (one who digs) · grc σκαφεύς (one who digs) · be граба́р (one who digs) · et kaevur (tool for digging) · uk граба́р (one who digs) · sv grävare (one who digs) · ikz umusimbi class 1 (one who digs) · ms pengorek (one who digs) · cs kopáč (one who digs) · sl kopač (one who digs) · tr kazıcı (one who digs) · fi kaivuri (tool for digging) · enm delvere (one who digs) · ca excavador (one who digs) · ru копа́тель (one who digs) · eo fosilo (tool for digging) · mk ко́пач (one who digs) · sh ко̀па̄ч (one who digs) · pl kopacz (one who digs) · de Gräber (one who digs) · sk kopáč (one who digs) · fi kaivaja (one who digs) · mk иско́пувач (tool for digging) · sh kòpāč (one who digs) · yi גרעבער (one who digs) · da graver (one who digs) · ca excavadora (tool for digging) · be капа́льнік (one who digs) · ms penggali (one who digs) · et kaevaja (one who digs) · mr खोदणारा (one who digs) · cwa omusimbi class 1 (one who digs) · enm gravere (one who digs) · ro săpător (one who digs) · nl graver (one who digs) · uk землеко́п (one who digs) · nb graver (one who digs) · ru гра́барь (one who digs) · uk копа́льник (one who digs) · ang delfere (one who digs) · bg копа́ч (one who digs) · fr excavateur (one who digs) · ar حَفَّار (one who digs) · ru граба́рь (one who digs) · et kopp (tool for digging) · de Grabwerkzeug (tool for digging) · ru копа́льщик (one who digs)

digger en · NOUN

Pronunciation

Etymology

Meanings

Forms

Deriveds

Hyponyms

Synonyms

Translations (55)