scarifier
(ˈskærɪfaɪə(r))
[f. scarify v.1 + -er1.]
1. One who or something which scarifies. lit. and fig.
| 1566 Securis Detection D ij b, Playster makers, clyster geuers, scarifiers, letters out of bloud, &c. 1683 Salmon Doron Med. i. 79 Cicatrizers, or ‘Scarrifyers’. 1855 Dickens Lett. (1880) I. 403, I have almost finished No. 3, in which I have relieved my indignant soul with a scarifier. 1862 Thackeray Philip xvi, There is an air of fashion in everything which Digges writes,..which makes me pretty certain that D. was my scarifier. |
2. = scarificator 1.
| 1611 in Cotgr.; and in later Dicts. |
3. Agric. An implement for loosening the soil.
| 1797 Billingsley View Agric. Somerset 278, His [Rev. J. Cooke's] instruments called the scuffler, and scarifier, are the best contrivances I ever beheld, for the pulverization of the soil. 1880 J. W. Hill Guide Agric. Implements 472 Improved four-wheel wrought iron lever Scarifiers. |
4. Road-making. A machine used for breaking up a road. Cf. scarify v.1 3 b.
| 1892 Daily News 21 Oct. 5/5 Our new acquaintance ‘the scarifier’, whose operations when the roadway of the Thames Embankment is remaking attract so much attention. 1901 Athenæum 1 June 697/2 Scarifiers..appear to have been first introduced in England in 1884; and these machines form very valuable adjuncts to steam rolling. |