▪ I. sawdust, n.
(ˈsɔːdʌst)
[f. saw n.1 + dust n.]
1. a. Wood in the state of small particles, detached from a tree, plank, etc. in the process of sawing.
| 1530 Palsgr. 265/1 Sawedust, sievre dais. 1563 Respublica i. iv. 344 What is your brain-pan stufte with-all? wull or sawduste? 1573 Tusser Husb. (1878) 42 Saue sawe dust, and brick dust, and ashes so fine, for alley to walke in, with neighbour of thine. a 1680 Butler Elephant in Moon (long verse) 218 Make Chips of Elms produce the largest Trees, Or sowing Saw-dust furnish Nurseries. 1712 J. James tr. Le Blond's Gardening 175 Ants..are driven away by strewing very fine Saw-dust. 1854 Ronalds & Richardson Chem. Technol. (ed. 2) I. 60 Winkler enclosed his specimens in crucibles surrounded with saw-dust. 1884 Mrs. C. Praed Zero xi, My doll is stuffed with sawdust. |
b. transf. and fig. (Sometimes with reference to the use of sawdust for stuffing dolls or puppets.)
| a 1873 Mrs. Spofford in Casq. Literature IV. 9/2 The deviled turkey sizzled..away to saw-dust. 1890 L. D'Oyle Notches 16 I'll knock the saw-dust out of any two men in this hole of a place. 1908 Nation 12 Sept. 833/2 The other characters are all sawdust and wires. |
2. In wider sense: Dust of any material produced in the process of sawing. rare.
| 1672 Wiseman Wounds ii. 138 That done we cleansed the wound from the Saw-dust. 1835–6 P. Barlow in Encycl. Metrop. (1845) VIII. 650/1 [Ivory] rubbed over with a little of its own sawdust. |
3. a. attrib. and Comb., as sawdust-pad; sawdust-like adj.; sawdust game U.S. slang, a type of confidence trick; sawdust-powder, a substitute for gunpowder, prepared by treating sawdust with acids.
| 1872 G. P. Burnham Mem. U.S. Secret Service 404 A new device for skilful robbery of the uninitiated has been introduced..known as the ‘*Sawdust’ or ‘Circular’ Game. 1939 Times Lit. Suppl. 9 Sept. 530/2 We hear all about..the ‘sawdust game’, (selling bad notes). |
| 1899 Rodway Guiana Wilds 145 The *sawdust-like cassava bread. |
| 1879 St. George's Hosp. Rep. IX. 308 Great comfort was derived from the use of the *sawdust-pads. |
| 1883 F. A. Abel in Encycl. Brit. XI. 278/2 Preparations allied to gun-cotton, in the production of which wood fibre is used as the starting-point, are manufactured..under the name of Schultze's powder, *sawdust powder, and patent gunpowder. |
b. With reference to the use of sawdust for strewing the floor of a place of public entertainment (as a circus, etc.) or (U.S.) the arena used by a travelling evangelist.
| 1864 P. Paterson Glimpses of Real Life xii. 120 As good as the general run of sawdust plays. 1883 Century Mag. XXV. 746/1, I was not flattered at being taken for a sawdust artist. 1883 Sawdust ring [see ring n.1 13 a]. 1902 R. W. Chambers Maids of Paradise xvii. 296 Once only they [the circus procession] circled the saw-dust ring. 1913 Collier's 26 July 7/3 And down the aisle, ‘hitting the sawdust trail’, they come in ones and twos and dozens, until 476 have stood before that multitude to shake the evangelist's hand and signify their intention of starting another life. 1915 T. S. Eliot in Catholic Anthol. 2 One⁓night cheap hotels And sawdust restaurants with oyster⁓shells. 1946 S. H. Holbrook Lost Men of Amer. Hist. 312 Many of these suddenly patriotic pleaders..like repentant sinners at a revival, hurried down the sawdust path. 1964 A. Wykes Gambling vii. 170 The terms ‘carpet joint’ and ‘sawdust joint’ meant broadly the degree of luxury or squalor to be expected in American gambling saloons. 1977 Time 11 July 41/2 Sawdust Evangelist Rex Humbard, likes to exhort: ‘You'd better straighten out and fly right with God.’ 1978 M. Puzo Fools Die xiv. 152, I spent the day going through all the casinos in town on the Strip and the sawdust joints in the center of town. |
Hence ˈsawdusty a., abounding in, savouring of, or resembling sawdust; of the nature of sawdust.
| 1861 Dickens Gt. Expect. iv, I remember Mr. Hubble as a tough high-shouldered stooping old man, of a sawdusty fragrance. 1863 ― Uncomm. Trav. xxi, A bagatelle-board shadily visible in a sawdusty parlour. 1880 Confess. Frivolous Girl 172 In his society I sometimes felt that life was stupid, but never that it was hollow and sawdusty. 1893 J. T. Hoskins Mr. P.'s Diary 356 Dry, tasteless, sawdusty white bread. 1896 Mrs. Caffyn Quaker Grandmother 55, I never liked dressing dolls, it brought one into too close contact with their sawdusty insides. |
▪ II. sawdust, v.
(ˈsɔːdʌst)
[f. sawdust n.]
trans. To cover, sprinkle, or strew with sawdust. Hence ˈsawdusted ppl. a., ˈsawdusting vbl. n.
| 1844 Alb. Smith Adv. Mr. Ledbury xiii, A..sawdusted tavern. 1855 Dickens Dorrit i. ix, The sweeping and saw⁓dusting of the common room. 1882 P. Fitzgerald Recreat. Lit. Man I. 249 All is duly sawdusted. 1895 J. Davidson Earl Lavender 177 In the midst of the sawdusted floor. |