navvy
Americannoun
noun
Other Word Forms
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
In Norway he had been a cobbler's apprentice, woodsman, stevedore and road navvy.
From Time Magazine Archive
On the other hand, a careless observer, at first glance, might have mistaken Blake, with his flannel shirt and shouldered club, for a hulking navvy.
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.
