street sweeper
4
2.1
- noun
- /strit ˈswipər/
:
barredora
- The city hired a new street sweeper to keep the roads clean after the winter storms.
- street sweeper can clean
- street sweeper comes
- street sweeper goes
I first got going to a A and I my first ever job and it was a, it was a litter picker, a street sweeper in Kingston upon Thames, right?
- I first got going to a A and I my first ever job and it was a, it was a litter picker, a street sweeper in Kingston upon Thames, right?
Examples
-
The students were asked to identify the workers who were missing, such as the police officers, park employees, and street sweepers.
Academic text (1992) -
It was dark outside, and quiet, nothing but the sound of a lone street sweeper making his way through the gutters.
Fiction book (2001) -
In America even the street sweeper has a car.
-
We just got passed by a street sweeper.
-
His father is a street sweeper.
Fiction book (1998) -
The summer before I went off to college, my father got me a job as the assistant operator of a street sweeper.
Fiction book (1999) -
The city's street sweepers have been MIA for months at a time.
Blog text (33) -
The hum of a street sweeper echoed off the concrete.
Fiction book (2000) -
A somber winter sky hung over a lone Senegalese street sweeper.
Fiction book (1990) -
Her father was a street sweeper and gifted amateur singer who died of kidney trouble when Greta was fourteen.
Fiction book (1999)
Synonyms
13
1.3
A person who cleans floors or streets using a broom
1
1.0
A person who cleans public streets for the city
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'a person who cleans streets' is directly and compositionally derived from 'street' (public road) + 'sweeper' (a worker who sweeps). This noun-compound follows a common modifier+head pattern found across languages, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents would readily infer the MWE's meaning.
Etymology
Street sweeper comes from the simple picture of someone walking along a street with a broom or a machine that sweeps up dirt and leaves, and the word sweeper shows the action. That's why street sweeper means 'a person whose job is to clean streets'.