as in stevedore
one who loads and unloads ships at a port
sought work as a roustabout on the city's seedy waterfront
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Recent Examples of roustabout
His young mother, Beatrice, had married an engineer and roustabout named Horace Seidner who turned out not to be the family type.
—
Penelope Green, New York Times, 13 Oct. 2022
Cox would work his way up from a roustabout and roughneck to eventually leading an oil and gas company as well as other notable businesses.
—Dallas News, 7 Nov. 2020
The shale patch was the Wild West reborn, featuring poker games with $1000 buy-ins, boisterous strip clubs packed with roustabouts and brawling in the muddy streets illuminated by columns of flaring gas.
—Shawn Tully, Fortune, 30 Apr. 2020
The Showmen's League Of America commemorates the 1918 Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus train disaster which killed 86 circus performers and roustabouts and injured 127, at Showman's Rest in Wood Lawn Cemetery in Forest Park, Ill., on Thursday, May 5, 2018.
—Dawn Mitchell, Indianapolis Star, 20 Feb. 2020
See All Example Sentences for roustabout
Penelope Green, New York Times, 13 Oct. 2022
Cox would work his way up from a roustabout and roughneck to eventually leading an oil and gas company as well as other notable businesses.
—Dallas News, 7 Nov. 2020
The shale patch was the Wild West reborn, featuring poker games with $1000 buy-ins, boisterous strip clubs packed with roustabouts and brawling in the muddy streets illuminated by columns of flaring gas.
—Shawn Tully, Fortune, 30 Apr. 2020
The Showmen's League Of America commemorates the 1918 Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus train disaster which killed 86 circus performers and roustabouts and injured 127, at Showman's Rest in Wood Lawn Cemetery in Forest Park, Ill., on Thursday, May 5, 2018.
—Dawn Mitchell, Indianapolis Star, 20 Feb. 2020
See All Example Sentences for roustabout
Recent Examples of Synonyms for roustabout
Noun
-
His father was a stevedore and his mother an autodidact who aspired to something better than the prefab house where her family lived.—
Molly Fischer,
New Yorker,
5 May 2025
-
Docks depended on a circulating pool of male maritime workers—crews of seamen and stokers who manned the tramp steamers, gangs of longshoremen, and stevedores who loaded and unloaded goods, as well as artisans and machinists who maintained and repaired the ships and trains.—
Michael Denning,
Foreign Affairs,
21 Aug. 2015
Noun
-
If there are more longshoremen than job orders, a portion of them will go without pay.—
Glenn Taylor,
Sourcing Journal,
9 June 2025
-
If there are more longshoremen than job orders, a portion of workers will go without pay.—
Caroline Petrow-Cohen,
Los Angeles Times,
7 June 2025
Noun
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The search effort intensified Friday after authorities confirmed that a dockworker had come forward with the kayak and paddle believed to belong to Valencia.—
Jenna deJong,
MSNBC Newsweek,
16 May 2025
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The head of the dockworkers union praised President-elect Trump for his support amid contract negotiations with port operators, particularly on the issue of automation.—
Taylor Giorno,
The Hill,
9 Jan. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Roustabout.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/roustabout. Accessed 5 Jul. 2025.
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