navvy
Americannoun
noun
Etymology
Origin of navvy
First recorded in 1825–35; short for navigator
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The effect wasn’t androgynous so much as deeply disconcerting: Priest was, in writer Julie Burchill’s memorable assessment, “built like a hod-carrier” and looked “like a navvy who’d stolen all your makeup”.
From The Guardian • Jun. 5, 2020
They were known as the East London Group, and among their ranks were humble office clerks, a navvy, a window cleaner, a shop assistant, a printer, a basket-weaver and an errand boy.
From BBC • Sep. 23, 2017
He is also likened to a navvy, a sweep, a stiff Dutch doll, and an immense feather mattress.
From The Guardian • Aug. 24, 2012
Nevertheless, Author Mason can keep a story rolling like a navvy with a barrel, and that one perilous, amazing skill makes it hard to ignore what's happening.
From Time Magazine Archive
But there was nothing of the navvy in his swinging stride or in the resolute poise of his head as he came up with Winthrope.
From Into the Primitive by Bennett, Robert Ames
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
