roustabout

roustabout is defined in Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1913) with 1 sense. The full text of each entry is reproduced verbatim below.

Definitions

  1. 1.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. [Western U.S.]

Source: Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913 edition (public domain, via GCIDE / Project Gutenberg).

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