steamroller
See also: steam roller
English
Alternative forms
Etymology
Pronunciation
- (General American) IPA(key): /ˈstimˌroʊlɚ/
Audio (US): (file)
Noun
steamroller (plural steamrollers)
- (historical) A steam-powered heavy road roller.
- (by extension, informal) Any heavy road roller.
- (figurative) Any seemingly irresistible force.
- 1970, James Taylor, “Steamroller Blues”:
- Well, I'm a steamroller, babe / I'm bound to roll all over you
- (slang) A pipe, used for smoking cannabis, open at both ends and having a bowl near one end.
- 2005, Jane Smiley, John Kulka, Natalie Danford, editors, Best New American Voices 2006, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, →ISBN, page 242:
- It's more about him testing his wares. He rolls joints. He doesn't own a bong, hookah, smoking pipe, chillum, vaporizer, scale, dugout system, grinder, or steamroller.
Derived terms
Translations
steam-powered road roller
|
road roller — see road roller
Verb
steamroller (third-person singular simple present steamrollers, present participle steamrollering, simple past and past participle steamrollered)
- (transitive) To level a road using a steamroller.
- Synonym: steamroll
- (transitive, figurative) To proceed ruthlessly against all opposition as if with an overwhelming force.
Translations
See also
Further reading
- steamroller on Wikipedia.Wikipedia