dwarf-holder

noun

Etymology

From dwarf + holder, by analogy with smallholder. First attested in the 1930s.

Definitions

  1. A poor farmer with a very small holding, especially one smaller than required for…

    A poor farmer with a very small holding, especially one smaller than required for subsistence.

    • It represented the rural middle classes against the bigger men, especially against their creditors, but it neither represented nor cared for the dwarf-holders, still less the agricultural labourers.
    • This was a time of land hunger and severely declining living standards for the teeming mass of smallholders, cottagers, and landless laborers who crowded onto the land. The world of the Halesowen dwarf-holders was terrible.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for dwarf-holder. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA