A power-driven machine for separating grain or other seed from the straw or husk. Also in Comb.
α. 1812. Sir J. Sinclair, Syst. Husb. Scot., I. 78. Oxen are at least equal … to horses, for working threshing-machines.
1812. Examiner, 21 Dec., 813/1. W. Forrest, Shiffnal, Salop, threshing-machine-maker.
1848. Mill, Pol Econ., I. ix. § 4. It may not answer to a small farmer to own a threshing machine, for the small quantity of corn he has to thresh.
β. 1797. Encycl. Brit. (ed. 3), XVIII. 505/2. The first thrashing machine attempted in modern times … was invented in Edinburgh … about the year 1732.
1834–6. Barlow, in Encycl. Metrop. (1845), VIII. 92/1. Where the thrashing machine supplies the place of the flail.
1861. Times, 24 Sept., 19/6. At the fine farm-steading, with its stalls, barns, 12-horse fixed steam engine, thrashing machine, saw-mill, bone-mill, &c., stall feeding is carried on to a moderate extent.
