ragsorter

9.9

A person who sorts old clothes and rags, often to make paper

noun
/ˈræɡˌsɔrtər/

Archaic

: clasificador de trapos

The ragsorter spent hours separating cotton from wool to prepare materials for the paper mill.

Examples

In the factory's heyday, dozens of ragsorters handled truckloads of old clothes daily.
Becoming a ragsorter was common work in the 19th-century textile industry.
The ragsorter worked tirelessly to prepare the materials.
Many ragsorters play a crucial role in recycling.
In the factory's heyday, dozens of ragsorters handled truckloads of old clothes daily.
The ragsorter spent hours separating cotton from wool to prepare materials for the paper mill.
Becoming a ragsorter was common work in the 19th-century textile industry.

Surface Forms

ragsorter singular

ragsorters plural

Morphology

ragsorter = rag + sorter (transparent) = rag + sort + er

Clear compound of 'rag' + 'sorter' (with agentive '-er' on 'sort'), meaning a person who sorts rags.

Etymology

The word ragsorter combines rag ('old cloth') and sorter from sort ('to arrange'). In the past, people in paper mills or textile factories would separate rags by type so they could be reused, especially to make paper, so ragsorter means a person who sorts rags for new uses.