sodbustern.
North American (western).
A term, chiefly opprobrious, for a farmer, farmworker, or homesteader in a cattle-grazing region, esp. one who ploughs virgin grassland.
ΘΚΠ
the world > food and drink > farming > farmer > [noun] > farmer in grazing lands
nester1850
sodbuster1922
1922 R. Stead Neighbours 126 Between your fine words I figger that you pick up a dollar now an' again by tottin' these tenderfoot sod-busters out over the bald-headed.
1927 C. Sandburg Amer. Songbag 89 Its tune was familiar to the lonely ‘sodbuster’.
1958 H. B. Allen in Publ. Amer. Dialect Soc. xxx. 11 The persistence of sodbuster and soddy as not necessarily opprobrious designations of the new settlers [in North Dakota].
1970 Alberta Hist. Rev. Summer 9/2 The one small cloud on this otherwise sunny horizon was the would-be farmer, or as he was more inhospitably known to the cattlemen—the ‘sodbuster’ or ‘nester’.
1979 Guardian 24 Mar. 12/1 The conflicts between sodbusters and cattle~men.
Derivatives
ˈsodbusting n. ploughing virgin grassland; farming.
ΘΚΠ
the world > food and drink > farming > cultivation or tillage > breaking up land > ploughing > [noun]
eartheOE
earingOE
ploughing1374
fallowing1426
labouragec1475
ardagh1483
eara1500
fallowa1500
arder1581
waining1585
stitch1600
caruage1610
furrow1610
till1647
aration1663
bouting1733
breast-ploughing1754
prairie-breaking1845
sodbusting1965
1965 G. Shepherd West of Yesterday x. 72 We owned cows and found that ranching was more attractive than sodbusting.
1972 G. Beine Land of Coyote 85 (heading) Sod busting a new field.
This entry has not yet been fully updated (first published 1986; most recently modified version published online June 2019).
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n.1922