tunnelist

English

Alternative forms

• tunnellist

Etymology

From tunnel +‎ -ist.

Noun

tunnelist (plural tunnelists)

1. Someone who digs tunnels, especially as a hobby.

   The tunnelist showed me the cellar he'd dug beneath his house.

   • 2016 April 12, “How did he do it? Building a backyard tunnel is no easy task”, in Calgary Herald‎^[1], Calgary, Alb.: Postmedia Network Inc., →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2016-06-17:

     Details about the backyard tunnel in Queensland revealed by Calgary police today are scarce — we know it was an alleged storehouse for stolen goods, and little else. But building a 30-foot tunnel is a huge amount of work, even more so if you're trying to keep it secret, as the famous Toronto tunnelist proved.

   • 2024 January 18, Amanda Holpuch, “The TikTok ’Tunnel Girl’ Is Not Alone”, in The New York Times‎^[2], New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2024-01-23:

     Spending hours heaving dirt and rocks from the ground might seem like an unusual pastime, but it has a history: Hobby tunnelists of yore include the Fifth Duke of Portland, who in the 19th century built an underground ballroom on his property, and, more recently, the so-called mole man of London, who spent 40 years making tunnels before he was discovered.

Related terms

• tunneler

 

References

• “tunnelist, n.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.

Further reading

• Hobby tunneling on Wikipedia.Wikipedia