navvy

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a laborer employed in heavy excavation or construction work, especially on canals, roads, or railways; chiefly British and historical

   A navvy swung his spade at the ground beside the unfinished railway cutting.

Simplified etymology

Navvy arose in the early 19th century as a shortening of navigator. In the 18th century, navigator could mean a laborer building canals, which were also called navigations; navigator ultimately derives from Latin navis, “ship.”

A nineteenth-century shortening of navigator. Navigators were laborers who dug the inland navigation canals of Britain; navvy later broadened to workers doing heavy manual construction on railways and roads.

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