manual laborer
1
3.0
- noun
- /ˈmæn.ju.əl ˈleɪ.bɚ.ɚ/
- US
:
trabajador manual
- After graduating from high school, he found a job as a manual laborer on a construction site.
- worked as a manual laborer
Examples
-
Most of their fathers came to the United States and worked as manual laborers or blue-collar workers.
Academic text (2011) -
The growth of ranching produced a growing need for manual laborers because neither the wealthy Spanish landowners nor the mission padres wished to work their own cattle.
Academic text (1994) -
No society can exist if everyone is a CEO, manager, or manual laborer.
Blog text (23) -
We obtain the same results if we replace skilled workers with manual laborers as a whole.
Academic text (1998) -
Manual laborers are often represented as confident and heroic.
Academic text (2002) -
A manual laborer from a poor district of the capital, Mr. Beheshti was not a professional activist.
Blog text (7) -
Most of them worked as craftsmen, manual laborers, or small farmers in the poor villages of southern Israel.
Academic text (2008) -
Although they were drawn from all the social classes, they were predominantly from Social Class II and III, semiprofessional and skilled manual laborers.
Academic text (1992) -
Even so, there were considerable local variations: Brooklyn and Newark had a higher proportion of unskilled manual laborers as club members than New York City.
Academic text (1991) -
Ten of 17 (50.8%) patients were manual laborers employed in construction or manufacturing factories, two (11.8%) were students, one (5.9%) was a truck driver, and the remaining four (23.5%) did not specify their vocation.
Academic text (2014)
Synonyms
∞
4.9
A worker who does physical work on a ship or farm
600
1.0
A person employed to do physical or routine jobs
68
1.0
A person who does hard physical work without special skills, often on building sites
53
2.9
A man who does physical work with his hands, not an office worker
49
2.8
A person who does manual or factory work for pay, not a manager
13
1.4
A person who does physical jobs like building or fixing things
11
3.5
A person who is paid each day to do manual work
10
4.4
A person who works on a ranch caring for cattle or horses
8
3.0
A person paid to work on a farm doing hard work
7
3.6
A person paid to do manual work on a farm or ranch
5
1.6
A person who works on a farm doing physical tasks like planting and caring for animals
4
3.2
A man who works on a farm for pay
1
7.8
A person who works very hard, often doing heavy or boring tasks
1
3.2
A person who works on a farm doing manual tasks like planting and harvesting
A person who does physical work with their hands
A person who works very hard at physical jobs
A woman who does physical work in a factory or workshop
How Physical
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly and transparently derived from combining 'manual' (by hand) with 'laborer' (a worker), so the phrase simply denotes a worker who does physical/hand work. This adjective+noun composition follows a common, cross-linguistic pattern and would be immediately understandable to a B1 learner who knows both constituent words.
Etymology
Manual laborer comes from the word manual, which means 'by hand', and laborer, which means 'worker', so imagine a person using their hands to dig, lift, or build. That's why manual laborer means someone who does 'physical work' rather than work with machines or ideas.