Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun One who tends a lock on a canal or stream.
  • noun The box on a door-jamb into which the bolt of a lock protrudes when shot.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • There's just enough room on this one for the lock-keeper's house, his beautifully kept garden and a small copse, one part of which is the tiny, five-pitch campsite.

    The 10 best secluded campsites 2011

  • Several of the locks on the upper reaches of the Thames are home to small, simple campsites overseen by the lock-keeper, often accessible only by boat or on foot.

    The 10 best waterside campsites 2011

  • Wife of the Britannia lock-keeper, I learned she was.

    SUICIDE 2010

  • Mr Mitchell, himself a keen photographer, was challenged twice, once by a lock-keeper while photographing a barge on the Leeds to Liverpool canal and once on the beach at Cleethorpes.

    Archive 2008-06-01 Not a sheep 2008

  • Mr Mitchell, himself a keen photographer, was challenged twice, once by a lock-keeper while photographing a barge on the Leeds to Liverpool canal and once on the beach at Cleethorpes.

    Photographer = terrorist or paedophile Not a sheep 2008

  • They lived in the flat, watery fens of East Anglia, where Tom's father worked as a lock-keeper.

    The Story of History, Small and Large 2009

  • Well, he would as soon be a lock-keeper as anything else in a humble walk of life — watching water go up and down, and living in that pretty cottage, with nothing to worry about, except — except his daughter!

    Swan Song 2004

  • “Boats go through the lock?” the lock-keeper shouted.

    To Say Nothing of the Dog Willis, Connie 1997

  • The lock-keeper put his hand to his ear and shouted back, “What?”

    To Say Nothing of the Dog Willis, Connie 1997

  • Abingdon Lock was closed, and it took us a quarter of an hour to wake up the lock-keeper, who took it out on us by letting the water out of the lock at a trickle.

    To Say Nothing of the Dog Willis, Connie 1997

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