postholen.

1703 R. Neve City & Countrey Purchaser 134 The Fence must be cross a Field..where it is easie digging the Post-holes.

a1722 E. Lisle Observ. Husbandry (1757) 130 If in clay-land, notwithstanding the great room a post takes in a post-hole, the same earth will with ease be rammed in the same hole again with the post.

1796 Ess. on Agric. occasioned by Mr. Stone's Rep. 57 A sort of post-hole is dug into the earth, which has never had any preparation, the tender plant is put in, large spits of earth are wedged one against another upon its roots, and then it is left for years.

1849 Sci. Amer. 12 May 271/2 Your ideas of a machine for boring post holes are very good, and would answer for soil free from rocks.

1888 A. T. Pierson Evangelistic Work xxiii. 236 [They] dug post-holes with their own hands.

1917 H. Garland Son of Middle Border x. 104 We dug postholes and built fences.

1976 Toronto Star 24 Dec. 49 (advt.) Audem Construction Ltd..postholes Driveways and garage pads.

1992 Village Voice (N.Y.) 8 Apr. 32/3 The proprietor is digging postholes around his property, using a rusted spade to gouge through the hardpack, broken bottles, and..cartons.

1888 Science 10 Aug. 65 What became of the house? That there had been one, the arrangement of the numerous post-holes plainly showed.

1901 Jrnl. Hellenic Stud. 21 345 Post-holes at the four corners mark the position of the wooden railing mentioned in the temple-inventory.

1936 Discovery Apr. 99/2 New house-sites were brought to light: some were of wattle-and-daub, and another with a compacted floor and post-holes was similar in plan to one discovered in 1934.

1977 Antiquaries Jrnl. 57 261 ‘Stakehole’ is used here to mean the void made by the decay of timber post driven into the ground; ‘posthole’ means a larger hole excavated in order to insert a post.

1988 Archaeol. of Early Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms 24 The term ‘hall’ includes all the rectangular timber buildings whose only remains are the postholes and beam-slots dug into the subsoil.

1923 Amer. Naturalist 57 443 A poverty-stricken college complained to a proverbially rich factory owner that his pond adjoining the college grounds was a mosquito nuisance... It was discovered that an old posthole on the college campus was providing the mosquitoes.

1932 Amer. Speech 7 269 [Language of California oil fields.] Post-hole, a shallow hole.

1872 Amer. Naturalist 6 627 A good post-hole auger, such as we use in this country, would work more rapidly, with the advantage of compressing the earth less, but it would do more injury to the roots.

1989 Plumbing (Time-Life Bks.) (new ed.) iv. 107/1 Dig a test hole..using a posthole auger.

1930 Geogr. Jrnl. 76 229 The boring kit was a 4-inch post-hole borer of a very efficient pattern.

1950 N.Z. Jrnl. Agric. June 553/3 Holes may be dug with a spade, sunk with a post-hole borer, or cored with a soil sampler.

1970 Times 18 Apr. (Sat. Review) p. vi./1 (advt.) Dig deep in seconds! Post-hole borer. Make a clear cut hole up to 3ft. deep by 8in. dia. in about 60 seconds.

1860 Sci. Amer. 7 July 28/2 John Lee, of Bolivar, Ohio, for an Improvement in Post-hole Diggers: I claim, first, The hollow self-discharging digger, constructed and operating as set forth.

1985 D. Conner Canada iii. viii. 237 My job was to dig holes five feet..deep for the telegraph poles. I used a seven foot..crowbar to break the soil and a long-handled posthole digger.

1962 H. R. Loyn Anglo-Saxon Eng. i. 43 Photography..and analysis of post-hole evidence have disclosed a series of royal halls.

1981 Man New Ser. 16 48 There are several types (of shelter) and all leave post-hole evidence in addition to ash and food residues.

1950 Amer. Antiq. 15 259 Houses generally have no definite entrance, gaps in the posthole pattern being the only indications of doorways.

1985 Jrnl. Field Archaeol. 12 401 The reconstructed chambered posthole pattern indicates that there were two rows of 10 posts each.

1965 G. J. Williams Econ. Geol. N.Z. ix. 133/1 The only published information directly relating to the ironsands represents the pioneering work of Nicholson, Fyfe (1958) who put down post-hole bores to depths of not more than 25 ft.

1932 Amer. Speech 7 269 [Language of California oil fields.] Post-hole territory, shallow productive territory—i.e., in which the oil sands lie at depths up to 2500 feet, ‘just under the grass roots’.