plodder

Noun

plodder (plural plodders)

1. A person who, or animal that, plods.
   • Brown rats, black rats, grey rats, tawny rats,
     Grave old plodders, gay young friskers […]1842, Robert Browning, The Pied Piper of Hamelin, London: Frederick Warne, published 1888, page 18
   • Mules and horses were individually plodders, or ‘flash,’ or rogues.1937, Ion L. Idriess, Over the Range, Sydney: Angus and Robertson, published 1947, page 6
2. A person who works slowly, making a great effort with little result; a person who studies laboriously.
   • Study is like the heaven’s glorious sun
     That will not be deep-search’d with saucy looks:
     Small have continual plodders ever won
     Save base authority from others' booksc. 1595–1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Loues Labour’s Lost”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
   • What an indefatigable plodder you are to get those papers ready so soon, and an unmerciful man besides to make me go over them to-night.1899, Pansy (pseudonym of Isabella Macdonald Alden), Three People, Boston: Lothrop, Lee & Shepard, Chapter 21, p. 271
3. A machine for extruding soap, margarine, etc. through a die plate so it can be cut into billets.
   • From the mill the soap passes into the hopper of the plodder. This machine feeds it automatically into a compartment where it is subjected to an enormous pressure, forming it again into a compact mass.1893, Henry Gathmann, American Soaps, page 258