Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In lumbering, a man who drives logs down streams, and prevents their lodging on shoals or being otherwise detained in their passage.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • Here may be found the moccasined man and the shoepacker; the river-driver with his pipe and his guernsey; the mining prospector and the lumberman; the hockey enthusiast and the Cabinet Minister.

    Canadian Cities of Romance 1922

  • The Arthurses 'ranch was the first abode of real civilization on the way out from the mountains, and it was nothing unusual for a lumberman with a chopped foot, or a prospector caught in sliding rock, or a river-driver crushed between logs, or a hunter the victim of his own marksmanship, to come limping or riding down the trail to this haven of first aid.

    The Homesteaders A Novel of the Canadian West Robert J. C. Stead 1919

  • The big river-driver turned on the grizzled old man beside the bar-counter with bent shoulders and lazy, drawling speech.

    The World for Sale, Complete Gilbert Parker 1897

  • They were low-browed, sturdy men, dressed in red or blue serge shirts, some with sashes around their waists, some with ear-rings in their ears, some in knee-boots, and some with the heavy spiked boots of the river-driver.

    The World for Sale, Complete Gilbert Parker 1897

  • The big river-driver, eager to maintain his supreme place as leader, lunged forward a step, and growled a challenge.

    The World for Sale, Complete Gilbert Parker 1897

  • She paused and went no further, for a red-shirted river-driver with brass rings in his ears came close to them, and called gruffly for whiskey.

    The Right of Way — Complete Gilbert Parker 1897

  • It was now known that the roughs of Manitou, led by the big river-driver, were about to start on a raid upon Lebanon and upon Ingolby at the very moment the horseshoe did its work.

    The World for Sale, Complete Gilbert Parker 1897

  • The big river-driver represented their natural instincts, their native fanaticism, their prejudices.

    The World for Sale, Complete Gilbert Parker 1897

  • The red-shirted river-driver from Manitou and the lawyer's clerk from Lebanon; the Presbyterian minister and a Christian brother of the Catholic school; a Salvation Army captain and a black-headed

    The World for Sale, Complete Gilbert Parker 1897

  • The crowd were absolutely still now, but the big river-driver shook himself free of the eloquence, which somehow swayed them all, and said:

    The World for Sale, Complete Gilbert Parker 1897

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