navvy

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

The effect wasn’t androgynous so much as deeply disconcerting: Priest was, in writer Julie Burchill’s memorable assessment, “built like a hod-carrier” and looked “like a navvy who’d stolen all your makeup”.

From The Guardian • Jun. 5, 2020

They were known as the East London Group, and among their ranks were humble office clerks, a navvy, a window cleaner, a shop assistant, a printer, a basket-weaver and an errand boy.

From BBC • Sep. 23, 2017

He is also likened to a navvy, a sweep, a stiff Dutch doll, and an immense feather mattress.

From The Guardian • Aug. 24, 2012

He once said, and allowed no secret to be made of it, that he would "rather talk to an intelligent navvy than to a dull duke."

From Time Magazine Archive

A broken man when he left Ashbrook to become a navvy; his absence had not improved his position.

From The Life of Thomas Wanless, Peasant by Wilson, Alexander Johnstone