DCHP-1 Online
sawyer 
1 n. Obs. or Hist. See 1784-1812 quote.
- 1784-1812 (1916) A Sawyer, for want of a Greek name, is a large tree torn from the Banks by the current, and floated down to some place too shoal to allow the root to pass[;] here it rests, but the tree itself is in the current below it. It's buoyancy makes it float, but being fast the current buries it, to a certain depth, from which the . . . lightness of the wood causes it to rise . . . again it is buried, and again it rises, and thus continues to the great danger of everything that comes it's way. . . .
- 1837 They would be hemmed in by sunken rafts, "snags," and "sawyers," that could be placed at an hour's notice.
2 n. Ont. a small, brown, eastern sub-species, Cryptoglaux acadica acadica, of the saw-whet.
See also: Acadian owl saw-whet
- 1822 The Sawyer or Whetsaw is so named from the sound of his voice, which resembles the whetting of a saw.
- 1956 Saw-whet owl [is called] sawyer (Ont.). . . .
3 n. Lumbering a logger employed in cutting felled trees into sawlogs.
See also: sawlog
- 1891 . . . the "sawyers" . . . cut [the trees] into convenient lengths. . . .
- 1919 Prices vary from 11 cents to 18 cents per log for sawyers and 20 cents to 25 cents per log for teamsters, swampers, etc.
- 1964 A.R.M. Lower . . . describes a typical sawlog gang as "two sawyers and three choppers. . . ."
- 1784-1812 (1916) A Sawyer, for want of a Greek name, is a large tree torn from the Banks by the current, and floated down to some place too shoal to allow the root to pass[;] here it rests, but the tree itself is in the current below it. It's buoyancy makes it float, but being fast the current buries it, to a certain depth, from which the . . . lightness of the wood causes it to rise . . . again it is buried, and again it rises, and thus continues to the great danger of everything that comes it's way. . . .