roughneck
roughneck Lexical Profile
roughneck Game Scores & Validity
• noun
A crew member who performs heavy manual labor on the floor of an oil or gas drilling rig, particularly connecting and disconnecting drill pipes.
"After three summers working as a roughneck in the Permian Basin, he was promoted to derrickhand."
North American A rough, coarse, or pugnacious person; a rowdy or tough individual.
"The tavern owner hired a pair of burly bouncers to keep local roughnecks from starting brawls."
• adjective
North American Characterized by rough, boisterous, or unrefined behavior; rowdy or rugged.
"The mining camp had a reputation for roughneck entertainment on Saturday nights."
• verb
To work as a laborer on an oil or gas drilling rig.
"He roughnecked on offshore platforms in the Gulf of Mexico to pay for his engineering degree."
Word Nuance & Usage
Do not confuse 'roughneck' (an oil-rig worker or a tough, rowdy person) with 'redneck' (a often derogatory term for a white rural working-class person) or 'roustabout' (an unskilled general laborer on an oil rig or at a circus, distinct from a skilled drilling-floor roughneck).
Word Origin & Etymology
Coined in American English in the 1830s as a compound of 'rough' and 'neck', originally referring to rugged frontier laborers and backwoodsmen before being adopted by travelling circuses and the petroleum industry in the early 20th century.