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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

roughneck.

A labourer on an oil rig or in the oilpatch, either skilled or semiskilled.

9 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈɹʌfˌnɛk/
  1. A labourer on an oil rig or in the oilpatch, either skilled or semiskilled.

    US · colloquial
  2. A dirty or low-paid worker, a labourer; an ironworker in an ironworks or a steelworker in a steelworks.

    US · colloquial · dated
  3. Someone with rough manners; a rowdy or uncouth person.

    US · colloquial
Where this word comes from

From rough + neck, originally "someone who works a manual labour job".

verb/ˈɹʌfˌnɛk/
  1. To work as a laborer on an oil rig.

Where this word comes from

From rough + neck, originally "someone who works a manual labour job".

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.