Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun An implement used for leveling roads and moving loose soil or gravel.
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
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Examples
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There had been a big quarrel among them about a road-scraper, and the next day every one was offering to wait, instead of grabbing at it the way they had been; and the women who had fallen out over a sleeve pattern and fought rings round, and called each other everything they could name, made it up right there.
Purple Springs 1921
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With his coat off and his white shirt-sleeves conspicuous among the gang that were working at the foundations, he set his hand to the shovel, himself guided the road-scraper, urging on the horses; cheering and encouraging the men, till they begged him to desist.
Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town Stephen Leacock 1906
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It was the sight of a dilapidated and deserted blacksmith shop near the road they were widening, and of some rusted fragments of tools scattered about here and there, which caused old Tom, as the road-scraper passed and repassed the spot, to look very closely down into the upturned dirt.
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As he sat on the road-scraper the mountains, purple and lofty against the sky, seemed now to be beckoning him.
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This method is undoubtedly better than the old district system; but the system of the future will not include a road-scraper except for the building of new roads.
The Road and the Roadside Burton Willis Potter 1885
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Mr. Gammon was informed that never and nowhere would Miss Sparkes demean herself by exchanging another word with him; that he was a low and vulgar and ignorant person, without manners enough for a road-scraper; moreover, that she had long since been the object of _sincere_ attentions from someone so vastly his superior that they were not to be named in the same month.
The Town Traveller George Gissing 1880
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[* This is merely an American term for a road which has been ploughed on each side, and the earth, so raised, thrown up in the centre by the means of a road-scraper, or turnpike shovel, worked either with horses or oxen.
Twenty-Seven Years in Canada West The Experience of an Early Settler (Volume I) Samuel Strickland 1835
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