digger

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   A large piece of machinery that digs holes or trenches.

   The cables are placed from 16 in. to 2 ft. down, and to save time and labour use was made of a mechanical digger lent by the Swedish State Railways.

2. 2
   noun

   A tool for digging.

   The post hole digger did look ancient. I was pretty certain myself that it hadn′t dug any holes for a long, long time.

Appears in

Simplified etymology

Digger originally meant a miner and was used in that sense in the United States before its appearance in 19th-century Australian English. Australians later transferred it to Anzac private soldiers, after which it became a general term for an Australian.

* Derived from Australian Colonial goldfields terminology. The term represents the mateship of common interests and activities where most of the population were gold miners, and almost everybody was a mate, a "digger", with a common cause against the troopers, the traps, the mining license inspectors.

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