road mender
- noun
- UK
:
reparador de carreteras
- After the storm, the road mender was called in to repair the damaged sections of the highway.
Examples
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Up until now, I had hopes—fears, actually—that they would turn out to be more road menders or honest laborers retired for a midday nap.
Fiction book (1990) -
Where do the sentries live? - At the road-mender's hut, across the bridge.
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- What about the road-mender's hut?
-
Take the road-mender's hut, destroy the post and stop anything from getting through to the bridge.
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The road mender fixed the potholes on our street last week.
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A skilled road mender can make sure that the roads remain safe for all drivers.
Synonyms
1
7.7
A person who takes care of and checks roads or railway tracks
A person who fixes and looks after roads
A woman who repairs and looks after roads
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly and compositionally derived from 'road' (a constructed surface) + 'mender' (someone who repairs): a person who repairs roads. This noun–noun/compound agent pattern is cross-linguistically common, so a B1 learner who knows the constituents will readily infer the job meaning even if the compound itself is infrequent.
Etymology
The name road mender comes from the simple image of someone who 'mends' a road like fixing a torn piece of cloth: the road is what is fixed and the mender is the person who repairs it. So it means 'a person who repairs and keeps roads in good condition'.