Etymologically
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sawyer

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 31 October 2026 at 15:40. This address is a permanent link to this version.
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Pronunciation

  • UK: /ˈsɔːjə/, /ˈsɔɪ.ə/[1]
  • US: /ˈsɔɪ.ɚ/, /ˈsɔ.jɚ/[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English sawier, also sawyer,[2][3][4] an alteration of sawer, formed from Middle English sawen (“to saw”) + -er, with the ending changed to the French-derived -ier of lawyer, bowyer and clothier.[5][6][7][8] The American Heritage Dictionary and Merriam-Webster derive it from the verb sawen,[9][2] and the Shorter Oxford from the noun saw;[10] the noun is sawe, from Old English sagu.[9][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

A workman who saws timber, especially in a saw pit: 1350, in the Memorials of London.[5] Etymonline dates the earlier forms sawer and sauere to the mid-13th century, and the word as a surname to about 1200.[7]

Semantic evolution

The plain form sawer survived beside it but became rare as a job title;[5] it was still used in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire dialect around 1900.[11] Johnson (1755) gave both forms for one who saws timber into boards or beams.[12] In America the word gained two new senses in the late 18th century.[5][10] A sawyer was a wood-boring beetle (1789), whose larvae damage pines;[5][10][13] and a tree fallen into a river and held by one end, its branches rising and falling in the current (1786),[5][10] a danger to boats on the Mississippi and the Missouri that Bartlett called a truly American word.[14] The Oxford Dictionary of English explains the name by the back-and-forth movement of the trapped log.[15] In Norfolk the name was also given to the merganser.[11]

Timeline

  • c. 1200 – as a surname.[7]
  • 1350 – a person who saws timber.[5]
  • 1379 – the form sawer.[5]
  • 1786 – in America, a tree fallen into a river.[5]
  • 1789 – a wood-boring beetle.[5][13]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A person whose work is sawing timber, as in a sawmill or over a saw pit.[4][2][5]
  2. Any of several wood-boring longhorn beetles whose larvae tunnel into conifers.[2][10]
  3. (US) A tree that has fallen into a river and is held fast at one end, bobbing in the current.[10][2][5]

Word family

  • undersawyer

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  3. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  4. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  6. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  7. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  8. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  9. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  10. ^ a b c d e f Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  11. ^ a b Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
  12. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  13. ^ a b Cassidy, Frederic G. & Joan Houston Hall (eds.) (1985–2002), Dictionary of American Regional English, vols I–IV, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press
  14. ^ Bartlett, John Russell (1848), Dictionary of Americanisms, New York: Bartlett and Welford
  15. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press