navvy
Americannoun
plural
navviesnoun
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.
They helped build the C&O Canal and worked as navvies, or laborers, in its port.
From Washington Post
He leaves for a better life with his mother’s brother in Leeds, where he becomes a navvy.
From The Guardian
Prof Rotherham said it may have originally arrived with Welsh "navvies digging out the cuttings for the canal systems".
From BBC
By 1917, when navvies poured in and construction started on an inland railway to the north, widespread food shortages had led to violent workers’ demonstrations and a near mutiny among the army units.
From The Guardian
The scale of the work can be judged by the group of navvies gathered in the bottom right of the picture.
From BBC
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.
