Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A laborer employed for temporary or unskilled jobs, as in an oil field.
- n. A circus laborer.
- n. A deck or wharf laborer, especially on the Mississippi River.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A common wharf-laborer or deck-hand, originally one on the Mississippi or other western river.
- n. See rouse-about.
Wiktionary
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. Western U.S. A laborer, especially a deck hand, on a river steamboat, who moves the cargo, loads and unloads wood, and the like; in an opprobrious sense, a shiftless vagrant who lives by chance jobs.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a member of a ship's crew who performs manual labor
Examples
“ROMANS: Look at the worst jobs, roustabout, which is for a worst job, it has the best name.”
“A roustabout is a dangerous job that typically pays about US$31,000 a year, with high unemployment and a negative outlook for growth, the study said.”
“NEW YORK -- Being an actuary, calculating statistics to determine probability and risk, is the best job to have in 2010, while working on an oil rig as a roustabout is the worst, according to a study released on Tuesday.”
“But what I love the most: also included at the bottom of the list are the job titles "roustabout" and "stevedore," which I admit I had to Google.”
“Redford served as a "roustabout," an unskilled laborer who did little jobs around the rigs, until he was discovered sleeping in an oil tank he'd been assigned to clean.”
The Wall Street Journal: Eight Successful People Grateful That They Got Canned
“In the same town there lived a Negro, named Henry Smith, a well-known character, a kind of roustabout, who was generally considered a harmless, weak-minded fellow, not capable of doing any important work, but sufficiently able to do chores and odd jobs around the houses of the white people who cared to employ him.”
The Red Record Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynching in the United States
“Though, as always with a Decemberists album, you may want to have a lyric sheet and thesaurus handy just in case you get a word like "roustabout" thrown at you.”
“By the way, Knight wants a camp hand, a kind of roustabout, who can cook -- a handy man, you know. ”
“Of course, it must be remembered that along with such frivolous occupations I was trying to get work as wop, lumper, and roustabout.”
“I did my time as a roustabout for three or four months but realized I was hopeless at farm work," laughs Clarke, who now calls Los Angeles home and is dating French actress Cécile Breccia.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘roustabout’.
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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old timey talk
Words or Sayings from the 1920's or whatever that no one really uses anymore (at least in that context).
scram, bearcat, heavens to betsy, dick, double-cross, ducky, gams, goofy, hooch, jalopy, john, joe and 174 more...
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funny & derogatory
WARNING: VERY EXPLICIT. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
funny derogatory names, quotes, phrases.
( open list, randomness, ad hom, ad hominem )
also see:
buttfucking quitter, dirty sanchez, donkey punch, falcon punch, assbadger, unicorn turd, assclown, fudgenut, quackery, friggin homo, buttmuncher, jackwagon and 279 more... -
• How to make a worker cry (derogativ...
What?! And I'm supposed to pay for your lousy work, you... you...
dauber, pettifogger, tinker, quill-driver, rhymester, numbnuts, peer, cartophiling, notaphily, speleology, letterboxing, metrophile and 43 more...
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Ruzuzu's totally rad, righteous, and ...
R words? Really? Right on!
retail, rabe, rutabega, Rashomon, radioisotope, Rasputin, rusty, rosacea, Rumi, riskier, rat, rifle and 53 more...
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Big Top
roadshow, hooplah, derring do, acrobat, buffoonery, cavort, hijinks, gaiety, frolic, ringmaster, stilts, tightrope and 77 more...
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The Medley of Me
A jumble of words, sometimes contradictory, that add up to me. I'll probably be adding to this list for some time, because I'm a very complex individual. ;P
male, long-haired, big-eyed, writer, artist, guitarist, songsmith, talespinner, pilot, wannabe barnstormer, gypsy, cuddlesome and 209 more...
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LWC's Words
spork, heteroskedasticity, kurtosis, eigenspace, smithian, skewness, montanan, whoremonger, mellifluous, fishwife, papist, romanist and 142 more...
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slackagogo's Words
agelast, aggiornamento, zaftig, wowserism, vox barbara, verbigeration, tchotchke, tautology, sycophant, spoonerism, solipsism, sobriquet and 288 more...
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schinders's Words
persiflage, preterition, quidnunc, finick, termagant, otiose, magniloquent, weltschmerz, schadenfreude, piehole, malevolent, susurrus and 132 more...
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AbraxasZugzwang's Words
atavism, abraxas, sisyphean, frust, fetus-in-fetu, arhythmically, queef, epidemiology, abecedarian, troglodyte, chiaroscuro, philology and 631 more...
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NTDW1
template, modal, sublingual, tandem, polycentric, septuagenarian, token, irrevocable, denotive, augural, aberrant, phlebotomy and 1188 more...
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Who Are You?
No one ever says, "I want to be a somnambulist when I grow up." But don't let that get in the way of organizing your Wordie lists.
chevalier, somnambulist, sommelier, troubadour, vicar, majordomo, caliph, polyglot, polymath, apprentice, nuyorican, privateer and 107 more...
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Gaw
Words for things both tangible and anthropic. I'm in the process of spinning off hardware into ute, and people into oofy.
cum-twang, naumachia, yngling, juggernaught, bliss ninny, iliac crest, moistened bint, slumlord, spondoolies, classy lady, charnel house, electrodoméstico and 334 more...
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Favorite Words
i love words.
ricochet, clavicle, etymology, equivocate, decoupage, dillydally, effervescent, flimflam, haberdashery, hullabaloo, debacle, juxtapose and 210 more...
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Oh them words, them words
My fancies, my cudgels.
liquescent, ferly, lamia, basilisk, trigon, fantast, stirp, tristesse, enfleurage, stemma, formicary, lacrimation and 346 more...
Tweets
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