See also: woodhewer and wood hewer

English edit

Alternative forms edit

Etymology edit

From wood +‎ hewer.

Noun edit

wood-hewer (plural wood-hewers)

  1. One who earns a living by splitting wood.
    • 1925, Sir Richard Doddridge Blackmore, Springhaven: A Tale of the Great War, →ISBN:
      But the present task was hateful to him; for any big-armed yokel, or common wood-hewer, might have done as much as he could do, and perhaps more, at it, and could have taken the same wage over it.
    • 2011, David A. Clary, George Washington's First War: His Early Military Adventures, →ISBN, page 130:
      One of the officers thought it unavoidable that troops would abandon the “uniformity of the clean, smart, soldier, and substitute, in his stead, the [look of the] slovenly, undisciplined wood-hewer, sand-digger, and hod-carrier.”
    • 2014, Anya Seton, Green Darkness, →ISBN:
      "I must hasten," he said. “Old Peter Cobb, a wood-hewer, is dying.”
    • 2016, Yemi D. Prince, The Birth of a Child in a Fishing Boat, →ISBN, page 63:
      My stomach was hooked by an admixture of bewilderment and elation as I jogged, walked, ran, and sometimes ran, walked and jogged till I reached Biodun's house, my senior at school— breathing heavily like a wood-hewer.

Translations edit