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roughneck

Pronunciation: /ˈɹʌfˌnɛk/

The English word “roughneck” has 4 meanings listed here.

noun

  1. A labourer on an oil rig or in the oilpatch, either skilled or semiskilled.
  2. A dirty or low-paid worker, a labourer; an ironworker in an ironworks or a steelworker in a steelworks.
  3. Someone with rough manners; a rowdy or uncouth person.

verb

  1. To work as a laborer on an oil rig.

Etymology

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

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.