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sandhog

American  
[sand-hog, -hawg] / ˈsændˌhɒg, -ˌhɔg /
Or sand hog

noun

  1. a laborer who digs or works in sand.

  2. a person who works, usually in a caisson, in digging underwater tunnels.


sandhog British  
/ ˈsændˌhɒɡ /

noun

  1. a person who works in underground or underwater construction projects

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of sandhog

An Americanism dating back to 1900–05; sand + hog

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.

And the removal or breaking up of the object is likely to be done with jackhammers or other old-fashioned tools that a tunnel-digging sandhog worker of generations past would recognize.

From New York Times • Dec. 20, 2013

McGinty is a sandhog, one of the New York City miners of Local 147, who got their start planting the caissons for the Brooklyn Bridge nearly 150 years ago.

From New York Times • Aug. 1, 2012

Still, Mr. O’Brien insisted that this job was one of the dirtiest he had encountered in his time as a sandhog, or tunnel worker.

From New York Times • Feb. 23, 2011

Where the cut & cover method was not adaptable, direct tunneling had to be done�sometimes with compressed air and a shield under sandhog conditions.

From Time Magazine Archive

After six months at Northwestern University, Beatty was bored, quit college and went to New York, where he found even more boredom working as a sandhog on the new tube of the Lincoln Tunnel.

From Time Magazine Archive