road gang
1
4.2
- noun
- /roʊd ɡæŋ/
- UK
:
equipo de carretera
- He is taken, not to prison this time, but to a road gang... where his criminal behavior will cost him dearly.
Examples
-
162 a road gang is grading a culvert with picks.
Fiction book (1994) -
Then why do you work on the road gang when you should build the "shapel"?
-
Looks like we got a road gang here.
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I'll put him on the road gang.
-
Chances are, I might be able to give up my job on that road gang, we can all eat a bit better.
-
Ah, I sure don't like to send a man to a road gang.
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I've been on the road gang almost 22 years.
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And you'll see a road gang laying lines.
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The workers in the road gang were busy repairing potholes on the main street.
-
After several months, he finally joined the road gang to help with the highway construction.
How Big
- UK
1
4.2
∞
1.3
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly and transparently composed from 'road' (a constructed surface) + 'gang' (a group who work or socialize together), so a B1 learner who knows both words can infer it refers to a group working on roads. Noun–noun compounds like this are common and cross-linguistically straightforward; although 'gang' can have a criminal sense, the modifier 'road' makes the occupational meaning clear in context.
Etymology
The noun road gang comes from a simple image: road is where they work and gang means a 'group' or 'work crew'. These were teams of workers who dug, laid, and repaired roads, so road gang now means 'a group of workers who build or repair roads'.