请输入您要查询的英文单词:

 

单词 digger
释义 digger|ˈdɪgə(r)|
[f. dig v. + -er.]
One who or that which digs.
1. One who excavates or turns up the earth with a mattock, spade, or other tool; also an animal that turns up the earth. With adverb, as digger-up.
c1400Promp. Parv. 118/1 Deluar or dyggar, fossor.1585J. B. tr. Viret's Sch. Beastes B vj, The Connies..are such continuall diggers and scrapers, that they..cleave a sunder and make hollow the stones and rockes.1608Capt. J. Smith Let. in Virginia. (1624) iii. 72 Send..gardiners, fisher men, blacksmiths..and diggers vp of trees, roots, well provided.1650R. Stapylton Strada's Low C. Warres x. 2 Prince Alexander..sometimes visiting the Diggers, sometimes the Miners.1723Lond. Gaz. No. 6188/8 B. P. Gardiner, Digger and Builder.1751Johnson Rambler No. 154 ⁋11 Treasures are thrown up by the ploughman and the digger.1895Blackw. Mag. Apr. 623 The digger-up of primeval bones.
2. spec.
a. A miner, especially one who works surface or shallow deposits.
1531–2Act 23 Hen. VIII, c. 8 §1 That no person or persons..shall labour, dig, or wash any tin in any of the said tin workes, called Streme workes, vnlesse the saide digger, owner or wassher, shall make..sufficient hatches and ties in the ende of their buddels and cordes [etc.].1570Dee Math. Pref. 36 For..Miners, Diggers for Mettalls..any man may easily perceaue..the great aide of Geometrie.a1661Fuller Worthies, Wales (R.), Fresh aire..whereby the candle in the mine is daily kept burning, and the diggers recruited constantly with a sufficiency of breath.1661Boyle Style of Script. Ep. Ded. (1675) 6 As a homely digger may shew a man a rich mine.
b. esp. One who digs or searches for gold in a gold-field. Also attrib.
1853Valiant Let. in McCombie Hist. Victoria xvi. (1858) 248 It caused the diggers..to pause in their headlong career.1856Emerson Eng. Traits, Lit. Wks. (Bohn) II. 113 Like diggers in California ‘prospecting for a placer’ that will pay.1869R. B. Smyth Goldfields Victoria 609 Digger.. applied formerly to all persons who searched for gold; and now generally restricted to those who seek for gold in the shallow alluviums.1875Spectator (Melbourne) 19 June 79/2 The rough digger of the primitive era.1881H. W. Nesfield Chequered Career vii. 75 Their manner of accosting me was simply their ‘digger’ style of humour.1894C. J. O'Regan Voices of Wave & Tree 10 But that was digger nature.
c. One of a tribe or class of N. American Indians who subsist chiefly on roots dug from the ground.
1837W. Irving Capt. Bonneville II. 209 Sometimes the Diggers aspire to nobler game, and succeed in entrapping the antelope.1848Blackw. Mag. LXIV. 132 They came upon a band of miserable Indians, who, from the fact of their subsisting chiefly on roots, are called the Diggers.1883B. Harte Carquinez Woods vii. 154 note, Diggers, a local name for a peaceful tribe of Indians inhabiting Northern California, who live on roots and herbs.
attrib.1865Tylor Early Hist. Man. vii. 185 The miserable ‘Digger Indians’, of North America.1875F. Parkman in N. Amer. Rev. CXX. 43 The abject ‘Digger’ hordes of Nevada.1882B. Harte Flip v, Ye might do it to please that digger squaw.
d. (a) Eng. Hist. A section of the Levellers in 1649, who adopted communistic principles as to the land, in accordance with which they began to dig and plant the commons. (b) In modern use, a member of a group of hippies who believe in a society where all food and possessions are shared freely and land is cultivated to feed the poor. Also attrib.
[1649Clarke Pa. (Camd. Soc. 1894) II. 211 (Information, dated 16 April), One Everard and two more..all living att Cobham, came to St. George's Hill in Surrey, and began to digge on that side the Hill next to Campe Close, and sowed the ground with parsenipps, and carretts, and beans.] Ibid. 215 (Dec.) To his Excellency the Lord Fairfax..the Brotherly Request of those that are called Diggers, sheweth, That whereas we have begun to digg upon the Commons for a livelihood, first, for the righteous law of Creation that gives the earth freely to one as well as another.Ibid. 221 [The Digger's Song] You noble Diggers all, stand up now, stand up now..The wast land to maintain, seeing Cavaliers by name, Your digging does disdaine, and persons all defame, Stand up now, Diggers all.1650Needham Case Commw. 79 There is a new Faction started up out of ours [Levellers], known by the name of Diggers; who..have framed a new plea for a Returne of all men ad Tuguria, that like the old Parthians..and other wild Barbarians, we might renounce Townes and Cities, live as Rovers, and enjoy all in common.a1676Whitelocke Memorials (1853) III. 17. 1894 C. H. Firth in Clarke Pa. II. 222 note, Three of the Diggers..were brought before the Court at Kingston for trespass in digging upon St. George's Hill, and infringing the rights of Mr. Drake, the Lord of the Manor.
1967G. Legman Fake Revolt 19 Try to round up votes and get a bearded Digger or mock-saintly Provo elected mayor.1967Economist 15 July 217/2 A loosely knit group called the Diggers—taking the name from agrarian communists in the seventeenth century who cultivated waste lands to feed the poor—is operating pads for homeless hippies and dispensing free food and clothing, obtained by soliciting contributions from shopkeepers.1968Guardian 29 Apr. 7/5 The first Digger conference opened at London Anti-university over the weekend.1969Ibid. 27 Sept. 9/1 A leader of the London Diggers..describes his group as ‘communal hippies, nonviolent basically and nonauthoritarian’.
e. A person who digs for archæological purposes. Cf. dig v. 1 a and 3 a.
1911T. E. Lawrence Home Lett. (1954) 149 Thompson is not a digger, so the direction of that part would be my share.1914Kipling Lett. of Travel (1920) 256 Their dream (the diggers' dream always) is to discover a virgin tomb.1960Times 22 Feb. 14/1 Woolley will always be remembered as one of the most successful diggers ever engaged in field archaeology.
f. colloq. An Australian or New Zealander; spec. in the wars of 1914–18 and 1939–45, a soldier from Australia or New Zealand, esp. a private soldier; freq. as a term of address = cobber n.2 Also attrib. Cf. dig n.3
1917Chrons. N.Z.E.F. 5 Sept. 28/1 He ain't no digger; that's the colonel or the sergeant-major.Ibid. 14 Nov. 154/2 Two hefty diggers escorted the little lady to her home.1917E. Miller in Camps, Tramps & Trenches (1939) xxiv. 192 A digger officer would have worded the message quite differently.1918Digger 13 On the wing with the jam, Digger.1919[see Aussie n. and a. 1].1919W. H. Downing (title) Digger dialects. A collection of slang phrases used by the Australian soldiers on active service.1923D. H. Lawrence Kangaroo v. 98 We're mostly diggers back from the war.1929C. C. Martindale Risen Sun 14 Where my experience of the Diggers really began was a little club in the Turl, to which hospital cases came.1940War Illustr. 16 Feb. p. iii/1, They are forming a new Digger Expeditionary Force, but old blokes like me are not wanted.1941Illustr. London News CXCIX. 534/1 They are a mixed lot, these ‘diggers’, some from offices, others from factories.1948R. Finlayson Tidal Creek i. 8 Put your bag under the seat, digger.1963Evening Post (Wellington, N.Z.) 26 Dec., Remembering the old diggers at this festive time of the year.
3. An instrument for digging, a digging tool; also the digging part of a machine. Also in various combs. as hop-digger, potato-digger, etc.
1686Plot Staffordsh. 353 They weed their Wheat..with an Iron digger.1819G. Samouelle Entomol. Compend. 308 The digger is best with an arrow-headed point.1839Gray Lett. (1893) 144 He presented me with a beautiful botanical digger of fine polished steel, with a leathern sheath.1861S. Thomson Wild Fl. iii. (ed. 4) 155 A short ‘digger’ or hand ‘spud’.1861Times 11 July, As the engine travels slowly forward, the digger cuts and throws up the soil behind.
4. A division of Hymenopterous insects, also called digger-wasps.
1847Carpenter Zool. §693 The Crabronidæ, Labridæ, Bembecidæ, Sphegidæ, Sciolidæ, Mutilidæ..may be termed from their peculiar habits..Fossores or Diggers; and they are commonly known as Sand and Wood-Wasps.1871E. F. Staveley Brit. Insects 203 The second division of the predacious stinging Hymenoptera, known as Fossores, or diggers, consists of the Sand-wasps and Wood-wasps.
5. slang.
a. A spur.
b. A finger-nail.
c. A card of the spade suit; big-digger, the ace of spades (Farmer Slang).
1789G. Parker Life's Painter 173 s.v. (Farmer).1811Lex Balatronicum s.v. (Farmer).1859Matsell Vocabulum s.v. (Farmer).1881N.Y. Slang Dict. (Farmer), ‘I will fix my diggers in your dial-plate and turn it up with red.’
6. Comb., as digger-pine, a N. American species of pine, Pinus sabiniana; digger plough, a plough that breaks down the furrow-slice by means of a projecting wing or continuation of the mould-board; digger's delight Austral., a species of speedwell, Veronica perfoliata, so called from the supposition that it grows only on auriferous soil; digger-wasp (see sense 4).
1935Hutchinson's Techn. & Sci. Encycl. I. 38/2 Modern mould-board ploughs fall generally into one or other of two classes: general purpose ploughs..and digger ploughs, which leave the soil flat and broken.Ibid., In the general purpose plough the share is a pointed wedge... In the digger plough the share is wider and steeper and has a concave upper surface.1960Farmer & Stockbreeder 23 Feb. 64/2 Both competitors will use two ploughs—a free digger plough on stubble and a semi-digger on a one-year ley.
1878W. R. Guilfoyle 1st Bk. Austral. Bot. 64 Digger's Delight... A pretty, blue-flowering shrub with smooth stem-clasping leaves.1888D. Macdonald Gum Boughs 147 Such native flowers as the wild violet, the shepherd's purse, or the blue-flowered ‘digger's delight’.
1880Libr. Univ. Knowl. IX. 123 The digger-wasps..catch locusts..and bury them in their nests for their newly hatched young.
随便看

 

英语词典包含277258条英英释义在线翻译词条,基本涵盖了全部常用单词的英英翻译及用法,是英语学习的有利工具。

 

Copyright © 2004-2022 Newdu.com All Rights Reserved
更新时间:2025/1/10 3:40:04