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Glite Dictionary
🚇 Tunnel digger 🩺 Medical tool 🐾 Burrowing animal
tunneler

tunneler

4.4
An animal that digs tunnels underground for shelter or food
  • noun
  • /ˈtʌnələr/
  • US
translation icon : excavador
  • As a tunneler, the badger searched for worms and roots beneath the soil.

Examples

  • The tunneler dug a network of burrows to create a safe home underground.

  • He watched the tunneler work tirelessly to create its den in the garden.

  • No, I'm just a talented tunneler.

    Artemis Fowl (2020)

  • A big, fast, hungry tunneler who'll dig their way into that house.

    Artemis Fowl (2020)

Synonyms

burrower
vstunneler
3 3.7

An animal or person that digs tunnels in the ground to live in and to hide from danger

refers only to animals rather than to people

Compounds

bridge-and-tunneler
  • US
9.4

A person who travels from the suburbs into the city by bridge or tunnel

How Burrowing

mole
23 1.0
tunneler
  • US
4.4
burrower
3 3.7
digger
16 2.8

Surface Forms

tunneler singular
tunnelers plural

Morphology

tunneler = tunnel (transparent) = tunnel + er

Agentive nominalization from 'tunnel' + '-er' straightforwardly denotes an animal that digs tunnels.

Etymology

Tunneler comes from tunnel, originally meaning a 'tube' or 'barrel', so an animal called a tunneler is one that digs and makes tube-like passages underground for shelter or food. That link to making hollow 'tubes' in the earth explains the name.