bulldozer [L19th] To bulldoze someone first meant to intimidate them, and a bulldozer was a bully who intimidated others. Early examples often use the spelling bulldose, and the reference may have been to a severe ‘dose’ of flogging. In the 1890s bulldozer seems to have become attached to various devices for pushing things such as piles of earth or snow, and then around 1930 to the heavy tractor we are familiar with.