| / English Dictionary |
WORKMAN
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
An employee who performs manual or industrial labor
Synonyms:
working man; working person; workingman; workman
Classified under:
Hypernyms ("workman" is a kind of...):
employee (a worker who is hired to perform a job)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "workman"):
wetter (a workman who wets the work in a manufacturing process)
warehouseman; warehouser (a workman who manages or works in a warehouse)
utility man (a workman expected to serve in any capacity when called on)
stamper (a workman whose job is to form or cut out by applying a mold or die (either by hand or by operating a stamping machine))
sponger (a workman employed to collect sponges)
shearer (a workman who uses shears to cut leather or metal or textiles)
scratcher (a workman who uses a tool for scratching)
roundsman (a workman employed to make rounds (to deliver goods or make inspections or so on))
road mender; roadman (a workman who is employed to repair roads)
disinfestation officer; rat-catcher (a workman employed to destroy or drive away vermin)
paster (a workman who pastes)
bagger; boxer; packer (a workman employed to pack things into containers)
mover (workman employed by a moving company)
factory worker; mill-hand (a workman in a mill or factory)
Luddite (one of the 19th century English workmen who destroyed laborsaving machinery that they thought would cause unemployment)
lather (a workman who puts up laths)
lacer (a workman who laces shoes or footballs or books (during binding))
jack; laborer; labourer; manual laborer (someone who works with their hands; someone engaged in manual labor)
heaver (a workman who heaves freight or bulk goods (especially at a dockyard))
guest worker; guestworker (a person with temporary permission to work in another country)
gas fitter (a workman who installs and repairs gas fixtures and appliances)
fuller (a workman who fulls (cleans and thickens) freshly woven cloth for a living)
blaster; chargeman (a workman employed to blast with explosives)
excavator (a workman who excavates for foundations of buildings or for quarrying)
Derivation:
workmanship (skill in an occupation or trade)
Context examples:
By this time the report of the accident had spread among the workmen and boatmen about the Cobb, and many were collected near them, to be useful if wanted, at any rate, to enjoy the sight of a dead young lady, nay, two dead young ladies, for it proved twice as fine as the first report.
(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)
With an income quite sufficient to their wants thus secured to them, they had nothing to wait for after Edward was in possession of the living, but the readiness of the house, to which Colonel Brandon, with an eager desire for the accommodation of Elinor, was making considerable improvements; and after waiting some time for their completion, after experiencing, as usual, a thousand disappointments and delays from the unaccountable dilatoriness of the workmen, Elinor, as usual, broke through the first positive resolution of not marrying till every thing was ready, and the ceremony took place in Barton church early in the autumn.
(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)
I am practically industrious—painstaking, a workman to execute with perseverance and labour—but besides this there is a love for the marvellous, a belief in the marvellous, intertwined in all my projects, which hurries me out of the common pathways of men, even to the wild sea and unvisited regions I am about to explore.
(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)
Battle royal was waged, amid the smoking of many cigarettes and the expectoration of much tobacco-juice, wherein the tramp successfully held his own, even when a socialist workman sneered, There is no god but the Unknowable, and Herbert Spencer is his prophet.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
What nonsense one talks, Miss Woodhouse, when hard at work, if one talks at all;—your real workmen, I suppose, hold their tongues; but we gentlemen labourers if we get hold of a word—Miss Fairfax said something about conjecturing.
(Emma, by Jane Austen)
A pair of workman’s brogans encased my feet, and for trousers I was furnished with a pair of pale blue, washed-out overalls, one leg of which was fully ten inches shorter than the other.
(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)
Time was when none but my countrymen could do these things; but there is Clement of Chartres and others in France who are very worthy workmen.
(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
His eyes shone, and his cheek was flushed with the exhilaration of the master workman who sees his work lie ready before him.
(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
We waited patiently as we saw the workman come out and bring in his bag.
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
Five hundred workmen were employed to make two sails to my boat, according to my directions, by quilting thirteen folds of their strongest linen together.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
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