bulldozer

Meanings

1. A tractor with caterpillar tracks and an attached blade for pushing earth and building debris for coarse preliminary surface grading, demolishing building structures, etc.
2. One who bulldozes.
3. A member of a self-identified group of white US Southerners who colluded to influence outcomes of post-Reconstruction elections by intimidating, coercing and bullying black voters and legislators, including burning down houses and churches, flogging and murdering opponents.
4. A bully; an overbearing individual.

1. To bulldoze (demolish with a bulldozer).
2. To bulldoze (push through forcefully).

Etymology

Originally bull-dozer (1875, Louisiana, US), in the bullier and terrorizer sense; bulldoze + -er. The name for the earthmoving machine came later, figuratively, from that sense.