navvy
- noun
- /ˈnæv.i/
- Archaic
:
trabajador manual
Examples
-
My dad was a navvy.
-
A couple of tattoos, and you could pass yourself off as a navvy.
-
He worked as a navvy on the construction site, digging trenches for new pipes.
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After years of being a navvy, he was proud of the tunnels he had helped build.
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The navvy carried heavy bags of cement up the hill for the road project.
Synonyms
68
1.0
A person who does hard physical work without special skills, often on building sites
13
8.5
A person who does low-paid, unskilled work
13
1.4
A person who does physical jobs like building or fixing things
7
8.1
A person who does hard, dull, repetitive work
1
4.2
A person or machine that makes long narrow holes for pipes
1
3.0
A person who does hard work using their hands
1
9.9
A person who digs long narrow holes in the ground for pipes or defence
A person who digs ditches or trenches in muddy ground
Surface Forms
Etymology
Navvy comes from a short form of navigator, a word once used for people who built canals for ships, from Latin navigare 'to sail'. So a navvy became the name for a worker who dug and built canals, railways and roads.