trimmer
/ˈtrɪmə
/noun
1An implement used for cutting and neatening something: a hedge trimmer...
- Think about sharp things you use everyday such as tools, nail trimmers, razors, knives, even dental floss.
- Use an electric razor when shaving and be cautious when using nail trimmers, knives, etc.
- Ultimately, I found a way around the issue: each week, I use a beard trimmer without the comb, resulting in something like a 2-day growth that looks really good.
2A person who adapts their views to the prevailing political trends for personal advancement: he is a clever trimmer, a closet federalist unchanged at heart...
- He's a trimmer, a politician of convenience who moves his positions around, depending on which way the wind is blowing.
- Given his position, it is not surprising that Whitelocke has been regarded by many commentators as a trimmer and time-server, but he is a reminder that many men did not wish to take sides or place themselves in peril.
- And trimmers drifted further and further to the right in an elusive search for the ‘center’ of American politics.
3A person who decorates something: window trimmers...
- That drive led the younger Gordy to abandon his US $86.40-a-week job as an upholstery trimmer on a Ford assembly line and to pursue a career in the music industry.
- Indeed, the composite make-up of carriages always mandated multiple skills, from body maker to smith, from trimmer to painter.
- I got trimmer's thumb now from all those damn drawing pins.
4 (also trimmer joist) Architecture A crosspiece fixed between full-length joists (and often across the end of truncated joists) to form part of the frame of an opening in a floor or roof: trimmer joists...
- Check your blueprint for the distance of the sill from the floor, then measure and mark it on the trimmer studs.
- They support a trimmer joist which itself supports trimmed joists, joined together using 'timber to timber' hangers.
- Never nail headers through a double trimmer.
5A person responsible for trimming the sails of a yacht: the spinnaker trimmer...
- During the race, Tom Droescher, working as the spinnaker trimmer, was swept overboard during a jibe and landed on his back in the 45-degree waters of Puget Sound.
- A trimmer / helmsman on board had only one thing on his mind when he arrived in Capetown at the end of leg one - romance.
- As trimmer / helmsman, Richards agrees she could not have picked a more daunting debut in the round-the-world race.
5.1A person employed to arrange cargo or fuel in a ship’s hold: a stoppage by coal bunkerers and trimmers working on the same ship...
- Young persons below 18 are not to be employed as trimmers or stokers at sea.
- The trimmers would have been there with their huge shovels making sure that the coal was properly spread out in the holds of the ship to ensure the ship's stability.
- Oil's great advantages were convenience, reduced manning due to removing the need for trimmers and stokers, and reduced space needed for fuel bunkers.
6A small capacitor or other component used to tune a circuit such as a radio set: [as modifier]: trimmer capacitors...
- The Lightweight Model 1196 features a trimmer receiver and a slimmer, lighter barrel than its 1187 older brother.
- The type illustrated usually has trimmers built in (for making small adjustments - see below) as well as the main variable capacitor.
- I thought that there should be a trimmer somewhere on the radio to tune the stations in stronger.
7Australian /NZ informal An excellent or outstanding person or thing: you little trimmer—it’ll suit me down to the ground
