Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A dock worker who loads and unloads ships.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A workman, as a stevedore or jobber, who is employed in loading and discharging the cargoes of vessels.
  • noun One who makes a living along shores by fishing for clams, oysters, etc.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun One of a class of laborers employed about the wharves of a seaport, especially in loading and unloading vessels.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A man employed to load and unload ships.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a laborer who loads and unloads vessels in a port

Etymologies

Sorry, no etymologies found.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word longshoreman.

Examples

  • Here I paraphrase longshoreman philosopher Eric Hoffer, from whom I lifted the title for this article.

    Russell Bishop: You Can Never Get Enough Of What You Don't Really Want 2009

  • We do know he is supposedly an unemployed longshoreman, which is odd, because he has enough money to spend many of his evenings drinking rum at various rebel taverns in North Boston.

    The Charade Laura Lee Guhrke 2000

  • The longshoreman was a saucy yin to the Market Street's cheesy yang.

    The News Tribune Blogs newstips@thenewstribune.com (SUE KIDD; Staff write 2010

  • (link) Lots of CGI to make Tom Cruise look more like a longshoreman, which is to say, a lot more like a fireplug.

    ccfinlay: Some short thoughts on "War of the Worlds" ccfinlay 2005

  • With Prince Albert of Monaco he held himself equal, and for every bird shot on the wing by the head of the house of Grimaldi the "longshoreman" of Havre brought down another.

    Royal Palaces and Parks of France Blanche McManus

  • He was aided by Huxley, who lent him a microscope, and ultimately this common 'longshoreman's researches were of real value to the scientific world.

    Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers 1906

  • Before March, 1961, I was a longshoreman working in the holds of ships when I was asked to take over this union and make something of it.

    Kill the Irishman Rick Porrello 2011

  • While becoming established as a longshoreman, or “dockwalloper,” as they have been dubbed on the Great Lakes, Danny busied himself reading in his spare time.

    Kill the Irishman Rick Porrello 2011

  • And his father (Stephen Lang) is a longshoreman who drinks up his earnings and then takes it out on his wife (Karen Allen) and older son with beatings.

    Marshall Fine: HuffPost Review: White Irish Drinkers Marshall Fine 2011

  • It was about this time that Danny received a phone call from Marty McCann, an F.B.I. agent investigating a longshoreman who had left a gun in his Detroit hotel room after attending an I.L.A. convention.

    Kill the Irishman Rick Porrello 2011

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • 1811, from alongshore + man.

    August 22, 2009