plodder

noun

Etymology: From Middle English plodder, equivalent to plod + -er.

1. A person who, or animal that, plods.

   “Brown rats, black rats, grey rats, tawny rats, Grave old plodders, gay young friskers […]”

   “Mules and horses were individually plodders, or ‘flash,’ or rogues.”

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' books”

   “1899, Pansy (pseudonym of Isabella Macdonald Alden), Three People, Boston: Lothrop, Lee & Shepard, Chapter 21, p. 271, 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.”

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.”