DCHP-2
mucker DCHP-2 (October 2016)
1 n. — Mining
a person who removes muck or loose rock from a mine by hand.
Type: 1. Origin — See OED-3, mucker n. sense 4a “a person who removes excavated material from a mine, quarry, etc.". The first quotation listed is from a US magazine dated 1899, which is antedated here from a British Columbia magazine (see the 1895 quotation). Chart 1 shows that the term in the mining context has a North American dimension (.ca and US are highest). Due to the earliest evidence to date found in Canada, the meaning can be considered Type 1 - Origin, in addition to a Type 4 - Cultural salience in the early Canadian context.See also: muck (def. 1 and 2) mud-rat
- The case of mucker, meaning 1, is reminiscent of skid road, which in the meaning of a derelict part of town (like skid row) is first attested in British Columbia, Canada in DARE and not in the US (s.v. "skid road (2)", see Pratt 2004).
2 n. — Mining
a mechanical shovel for removing muck (def. 2).
Type: 4. Culturally Significant — Mining has played an important part in the development of the country, from east to west. In combination with meaning 1, which is first attested in Canada, this term is of historical cultural importance for a society that depended, and still does in its more remote areas, on the extraction of natural resources.See also: muck (def. 2) mucking-machine
3 † n. — Sports, Hockey
a rough or physical person.
This meaning is not Canadian, other than perhaps through hockey terminology. It is, however, shown here to contextualize meaning 1, which is.
