Other forms: sawyers
A sawyer is somebody whose trade is sawing timber. The village sawyer, a sawyer's pit, worked as a sawyer.
Before machinery, two men worked a pit saw with one standing over the log and one below in a pit taking the sawdust, and the man underneath had the worse job by far. Sawyer as a surname comes straight from the trade.
1nounsawyerSomebody whose trade is sawing timber.
“As a sawyer, he spent his days cutting logs into planks at the timber yard.”
sawyer is a worker.
Middle English sawyer is saw plus an agent ending, a doublet of sawer.
Proto-Indo-European
*sek-
Middle English
sawyer
English, today
sawyer
From Middle English sawyer, sawier, sawior, equivalent to saw + yer. a doublet of sawer.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA