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.
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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
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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
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America dodged a sledgehammer on Thursday night, when striking stevedores reached a tentative agreement to return to work.Dan Primack, Axios, 4 Oct. 2024
Noun
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Thousands of longshoremen from Maine to Texas could walk off the job next week if long-running contract issues are not resolved, leading to a costly strike.Alexis Simendinger, The Hill, 8 Jan. 2025
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Teachers, writers, nurses, truck drivers, actors, longshoremen and other types of workers all joined picket lines seeking better pay and working arrangements in the face of rising prices.Tobias Burns, The Hill, 17 Dec. 2024
Noun
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Hiring also tailed off at a time when the labor market was disrupted by violent storms in the Southeast as well as two major labor strikes involving dockworkers and Boeing.Jeff Cox, CNBC, 3 Dec. 2024
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The big picture: Last night, the dockworker union announced a tentative deal with the United States Maritime Alliance.Courtenay Brown, Axios, 4 Oct. 2024
Thesaurus Entries Near roustabout
Cite this Entry
“Roustabout.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/roustabout. Accessed 18 Jan. 2025.
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