pipe fitter
1
3.7
- noun
- /ˈpaɪp ˈfɪtər/
- Specialized
:
instalador de tuberías
- The ranks of welders, carpenters, pipe fitters, and plumbers have been declining for years, and now we face the bizarre reality of rising unemployment and a shortage of skilled labor.
- a journeyman pipe fitter
- a plumber and pipe fitter
- the pipe fitters' union
Examples
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Our next guest, father worked as a pipe fitter in a San Francisco shipyard bending steel.
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Unions are the reason that our parents and grandparents were able to raise a family on their pay as machinists or pipe fitters.
Blog text (13) -
Are you a welder or a machinist or a pipe fitter?
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He taught himself to weld, to be a pipe fitter.
Fiction book (2001) -
He'd risen in the ranks from journeyman pipe fitter to foreman to supervisor.
Fiction book (1999) -
This involves many different contractors and hundreds of what the industry calls "craftspeople"—pipe fitters, riggers, nuclear-certified welders, and so on.
Academic text (2009) -
After completing his training, he found a job as a pipe fitter working on residential plumbing systems.
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She hired a pipe fitter to install new gas lines in her restaurant.
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The pipe fitter spent several hours repairing leaks in the industrial cooling system.
Synonyms
137
1.8
A person who installs and fixes water pipes and taps in buildings
1
4.1
A worker who installs and fixes pipes for heating and cooling systems
1
8.1
A skilled worker who installs and repairs heating, cooling, and steam pipes and machines
1
3.6
A person who installs and fixes gas pipes, stoves and heaters
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly compositional: 'pipe' (tubular conduit) + 'fitter' (agentive 'one who fits') yields 'a person who fits or installs pipes.' The -er agentive formation is productive and cross-linguistically common, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents can reliably infer the occupational meaning.
Etymology
Pipe fitter comes from the simple idea of a worker who 'fits' pipes; a pipe is a tube and a fitter is someone who joins or adjusts parts, so the name means 'a skilled worker who installs and repairs pipes'.