Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A railroad train fitted up with appliances for clearing away wreckage on the track and repairing damages so far as may be to cars, track, and engine. See
wrecking-car .
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
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Examples
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I try now to dignify them with handsome epithets; but while they were here I had moments of thinking they looked like a lot of whited locomotives, which had broken through from some trestle, in a recent accident, and were waiting the offices of a wrecking-train.
Staccato Notes of a Vanished Summer (from Literature and Life) William Dean Howells 1878
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I try now to dignify them with handsome epithets; but while they were here I had moments of thinking they looked like a lot of whited locomotives, which had broken through from some trestle, in a recent accident, and were waiting the offices of a wrecking-train.
Literature and Life (Complete) William Dean Howells 1878
bilby commented on the word wrecking-train
So a train wreck is following by a wrecking-train, not caused by it?
January 17, 2024
tankhughes commented on the word wrecking-train
I came in like a wrecking-train... to clean up the situation. Unexpected but makes sense. Same as firetruck.
January 17, 2024