pit-sawyern.
/ˈpɪtˌsɔːjə/, /ˈpɪtˌsɔɪə/, U.S. /ˈpɪtˌsɔjər/, /ˈpɪtˌsɔɪər/ A person who stands in a saw pit and works the lower handle of a pit-saw. Cf. top sawyer n. 1.
ΘΚΠ
the world > food and drink > farming > forestry or arboriculture > lumbering > [noun] > timber cutting > one who
pit-sawyer1792
bucker1900
1792 P. C. L'Enfant Let. 17 Jan. in G. Washington Papers (2000) Presidential Ser. IX. 461 10 pit sawyers.
1864 J. Weiss Life & Corr. Theodore Parker 377 All the timber is sawed by hand. Mr. Topsawyer stands on the log, Mr. Pitsawyer stands beneath; all the stone they [sc. Italians] veneer their houses with, is sawed by hand!
1870 Appleton's Jrnl. 9 July 44/1 The wood-sawyer, whose ‘independence’ became proverbial, was the pit-sawyer who spent the greater part of his time in the forests, and was thus removed from the restraints and conventionalities of life.
1946 Nature 17 Aug. 245/1 An exacting specification impossible for pit-sawyers to fulfil and other difficulties were experienced.
1996 Jrnl. Trop. Ecol. 12 586 The activities of pit-sawyers were curtailed after Mpanga was assigned the status of a Research Forest in 1951.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, June 2006; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1792