roughneck

English

Etymology

From rough +‎ neck, originally "someone who works a manual labour job".

Noun

roughneck (plural roughnecks)

  1. (colloquial, chiefly US) Someone with rough manners; a rowdy or uncouth person. [from 19th c.]
    • 2019, Bernardine Evaristo, Girl, Woman, Other, Penguin Books (2020), page 202:
      LaTisha has long wanted to show Carole sheʼs not the roughneck she used to be, the roughneck who wasnʼt good enough to be her friend.
  2. (colloquial, chiefly US) An ironworker; a dirty or low-paid worker, a labourer. [from 20th c.]
  3. (colloquial, chiefly US) A labourer on an oil rig. [from 20th c.]
    • 2013, Philipp Meyer, The Son, Simon & Schuster, published 2014, page 286:
      As for the minerals, there has been a good deal of drilling along the big river; trucks and roughnecks no longer garner any notice.

Translations

See also

Verb

roughneck (third-person singular simple present roughnecks, present participle roughnecking, simple past and past participle roughnecked)

  1. To work as a laborer on an oil rig.
    • 2009 January 13, Michael Brick, “Racing's Last Frontier”, in New York Times‎:
      There was a time not long ago when this region appeared as some enduring mystification, its citizenry best known for roughnecking on the North Slope […]
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