noun
-
a man who is employed in manual labour or who works an industrial machine
-
a craftsman of skill as specified
a bad workman
Gender
See -man.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of workman
before 900; Middle English werkman, Old English weorcman. See work, man
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.
See Examples For:
In the summer of 2006, a workman discovered a 1,200-year-old psalter while driving a bulldozer through an Irish bog.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 9, 2026
He ultimately made his way to Los Angeles where he broke into acting, with his first on-screen gig playing a workman in “Archie Bunker’s Place” in 1981.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 29, 2026
Among the theories for the cause of the fire are a cigarette left by a workman, or an electrical fault.
From BBC ● Nov. 28, 2024
No confirmed deaths have been reported from any of the recent eruptions, but a workman was declared missing after falling into a fissure opened by the volcano.
From Seattle Times ● Mar. 16, 2024
An Irish workman grabs a horse and races ahead for the doctor while the ox cart ambulance rumbles slowly down the half-mile to Cavendish.
From "Phineas Gage" by John Fleischman
Standing at the counter next to a crew of workmen, I sipped a latte and munched on a pastry as the smell of espresso and the sound of Italian greetings swirled around me.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 2, 2026
Mack forwarded the case to the director of public prosecutions, but the workmen faced no further action.
From BBC ● Apr. 25, 2026
An over-excited group of fans celebrated the two saves by breaking a pane of glass behind the Kings bench, sending the coaches scurrying and pausing the game for several minutes as workmen repaired the damage.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 22, 2026
The same word was written again multiple times on Tuesday while white paint was thrown over the picture, with workmen acting quickly to clean it.
From Barron's ● Nov. 4, 2025
The cause of her death went back into the past, to the time when Apollo in anger at Zeus for killing his son Aesculapius killed Zeus’s workmen, the Cyclopes.
From "Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes" by Edith Hamilton
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