Tow Sawyer

Difficulty:Level 7

When I was a school kid, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer was required reading, though I personally enjoyed the television dramatization of the book more. Considering some of the points of tension and excitement in the story, my strongest memory was of the painting of the picket fence.

The young Tom Sawyer was forced to give up his free time to paint his aunt's picket fence. While disappointed, he turned it into a money making opportunity. He convinced a passing friend that he very lucky to have the responsibility of painting a fence, eventually letting his friend paint the fence, but only after making him pay for the privilege.

sawyer

ˈsɔːjə

Meanings

noun

• a person who saws timber for a living.
• an uprooted tree floating in a river but held fast at one end.
• a large longhorn beetle whose larvae bore tunnels in the wood of injured or recently felled trees, producing an audible chewing sound.

Often we find that names in English come from professions, so I shouldn't be surprised to find this is the case with Sawyer too. I never knew that "sawyer" was the word for someone who makes their living from sawing wood.

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