roustabout

noun

A laborer employed for temporary or unskilled jobs, as in an oil field.

noun

A circus laborer.

noun

A deck or wharf laborer, especially on the Mississippi River.

noun

See rouse-about.

noun

A common wharf-laborer or deck-hand, originally one on the Mississippi or other western river.

noun

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.

noun

an unskilled laborer, especially at an oilfield, at a circus or on a ship

noun

a member of a ship’s crew who performs manual labor