snowplow

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A plowlike device or vehicle used to remove snow, especially from roads and railroad tracks.
2. n. A maneuver in snow skiing in which the tips of the skis are brought together in order to slow or stop progress.
3. v. To perform a snowplow in skiing.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. An implement for clearing away snow from roads, railways, etc. There are two kinds—one to be hauled by horses, oxen, etc., as on a common highway, and the other to be placed in front of a locomotive to clear the rails. A modification of the latter is adapted to street-railroads. The snow-plow for ordinary country roads, usually consists of a frame of boards braced together so as to form an acute angle in front, and spread out behind to any required distance. The machine being drawn by horses harnessed to the center framework, the angular point enters the snow, which is thrown off by the side-boards, and thus a free passage is opened for pedestrians, etc. For railway purposes, snow-plows are of various forms, adapted to the character of the country, the amount of snowfall, the tendency to drift, etc. Such plows vary in size from the simple plows carried on the front of an engine, resembling a cowcatcher with smooth iron sides, to heavy structures mounted on freight-car trucks, and pushed before one locomotive or more, or, as sometimes made, self-propelling. In recent forms the principle of centrifugal force has been utilized for removal of the snow. Snow-plows are often of great size, sometimes weighing fifty tons, and can be forced through very deep drifts.
2. n. Snow-plows used on electric roads are special cars fitted with high-power motors and some form of snow-scraper. One form, called a shear-plow, is fitted with strong wide shear-boards placed in pairs, the lower and outer board being adjustable at an angle of about 45° across the track in front of the car; another, called a nose-plow, has a double shear in front of the car. Each style also employs wing-scrapers behind the plows to shove the snow away from the car. Small shear-plows, called track-scrapers, are also fitted to ordinary cars to remove light falls of snow. For city streets snow-plows are often replaced by a machine called a track-sweeper.

Wiktionary

1. n. A vehicle that is used to push snow off surfaces such as roads.
2. n. A device attached to a vehicle to enable it to be used for removing snow.
3. n. A maneuver/manoeuvre in skiing in which the tips of the skis point inwards and the back ends point outwards, imitating a snowplow.
4. v. transitive To clear (roads, etc) using a snowplow.
5. v. intransitive To perform a snowplow in skiing.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. a structure, usually Λ-shaped, for removing snow from sidewalks, railroads, etc., -- drawn or driven by a horse or a locomotive.
2. n. An implement operating like a plow, but on a larger scale, for clearing away the snow from roads, railways, etc.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a vehicle used to push snow from roads