roadmaker

road +‎ maker

roadmaker (plural roadmakers)

1. Someone who or something that builds roads.
   • 1891, Lewis Muhlenberg Haupt, A Move for Better Roads, page 115:

     The really acute roadmaker will be as shy of having clay in the interstices of his stone work as the vigilant mason is of having clay in a brick or stone wall.

   • 1901, Annual Report of the State Engineer and Surveyor on the Canals of New York, page 129:

     In France every freight and market wagon is a roadmaker.

   • 1912, Andrew Broder, “Address”, in Sessional Papers of the Ontario Legislative Assembly, volume 44, number 5, page 10:

     Hannibal was a roadmaker, Cromwell was a roadmaker, Napoleon was a roadmaker.

   • 1912, Joseph Guinan, The Curate of Kilcloon, page 90:

     "Thank you for the compliment, your Reverence," he replied, construing the delicate innuendo in a favourable sense' "sure every one, high and low, knows Andy Spain, the roadmaker, after his forty years on the highway, since I was a gossoon helpin' my father, who was a roadmaker before me. Bedad, I am a well-known character, and no mistake."

   • 1918, Thomas Tiplady, The Soul of the Soldier: Sketches from the Western Battlefront, page 30:

     The roadmaker has his dreams and visions as well as the poet, and he expresses them in broken stones.

2. (figurative) An innovator; a trailblazer; a pioneer.
   • 1925, Frank Reyner Salter, Sir Thomas Gresham (1518-1579), page 166:

     In what way and to what extent may Gresham be looked upon as a roadmaker?

   • 1925, The Scottish Educational Journal - Volume 8, page 41:

     Who have been the roadmakers? The men and women who, by their intellect or character or example ... have prepared the way for human progress. They are the pioneers.

   • 1927, “Reviews: Thomas Carlyle, by Mary Agnes Hamilton”, in Education Outlook, volume 79, page 297:

     Among other troublesome questions, it is difficult to make up your mind exactly what can be the qualities which distinguish a "roadmaker" from an ordinary writer. Would you call Shelley a '"roadmaker," " or Donne?