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Digger vs Backhoe - What's the difference?

digger | backhoe |

As nouns the difference between digger and backhoe

is that digger is a large piece of machinery that digs holes or trenches; an excavator while backhoe is a piece of excavating equipment consisting of a digging bucket or scoop on the end of an articulated arm, drawn backwards to move earth.

As a verb backhoe is

to excavate using such equipment.

digger

English

Noun

(en noun)
  • A large piece of machinery that digs holes or trenches; an excavator.
  • A tool for digging.
  • * 2009 , Sharon Bomgaars, The Best Clubhouse Ever , page 143,
  • The post hole digger did look ancient. I was pretty certain myself that it hadn?t dug any holes for a long, long time.
  • A spade (playing card).
  • One who digs.
  • * 1997 , Barbara J. Wrede, Civilizing Your Puppy , page 75,
  • You?ve tried the supposedly sure method of squirting the digger' with water from a hose, and that hasn?t worked.This step will discourage 99 percent of the ' diggers .
  • * 2005 , Gary R. Sampson, Dick Wolfsie, Dog Dilemmas: Simple Solutions to Everyday Problems , page 130,
  • Most retrievers are not inveterate diggers — that?s a trait usually reserved for other breeds like wire-haired terriers and schnauzers.
  • (Australia, obsolete) A gold miner, one who digs for gold.
  • * 1853 , (editor), Household Words , Volume 21, page 64,
  • A successful Australian digger — successful, not merely in siftings and washings, but bearing the title, and its best credentials, of a “nuggetter” ? came down from Forest Creek recently and took up his abode in a low lodging-house in Little Bourke Street, Melbourne.
  • (Australia, dated) An informal nickname for a friend; used as a term of endearment .
  • (Australia, informal) An Australian soldier.
  • * 1998 , Helen Gilbert, Sightlines: Race, Gender, and Nation in Contemporary Australian Theatre , page 191,
  • Costume played a key part in his differentiation from British soldiers as the Digger uniform came to embody Australian versions of masculinity and mateship.
  • * 2002 , Jeff Doyle, Jeffrey Grey, Peter Pierce, Australia's Vietnam War , page xxiii,
  • For many, the congruencies of the Anzac legend and the diggers who served in Vietnam were slight, too slight, and the legend seemed unable to accommodate them.
  • * 2004 , Lisanne Gibson, Joanna Besley, Monumental Queensland: Signposts on a Cultural Landscape , page 99,
  • Like many other Queensland communities, the workers from the North Ipswich Railway Workshops chose a statue of a soldier, or digger , to honour their fellow workers.

    Derived terms

    * gold digger, golddigger * gravedigger * mini digger

    backhoe

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A piece of excavating equipment consisting of a digging bucket or scoop on the end of an articulated arm, drawn backwards to move earth.
  • (chiefly, US, Canada, Australia) A multi-purpose tractor with a front-mounted loading bucket and a rear-mounted digging bucket.
  • * 1967' June, Charles E. Rhine, ''How to Rent a '''Backhoe'' , '' , page 149,
  • The backhoe' is only one type of heavy equipment for rent.I heard about a couple of tool-rental outfits near Chicago that were doing a brisk business renting ' backhoes and other heavy equipment to homeowners
  • * 1987 , Dave Roberts, Pipe and Excavation Contracting , page 173,
  • I'll recommend a good way to calculate backhoe' production rates. Then we'll look at the two '''backhoes''' you'll be using, the wheeled '''backhoe''' and the tracked ' backhoe .
  • * 2010 , Robert Day, Foundation Engineering Handbook , 2nd edition, page 2.49,
  • Backhoe' pits and trenches are an economical means of performing subsurface exploration. The ' backhoe can quickly excavate the trench that can then be used to observe and test the in situ soil (see Fig. 2.29).

    Derived terms

    * backhoe loader

    Synonyms

    * (multi-purpose) backhoe loader , loader excavator , backhoe endloader * (digger) excavator

    See also

    * bobcat * excavator * front-end loader * JCB

    Verb

  • To excavate using such equipment.