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Roustabout vs Swamper - What's the difference?

roustabout | swamper |

As nouns the difference between roustabout and swamper

is that roustabout is (chiefly|us) an unskilled laborer, especially at an oilfield, at a circus or on a ship while swamper is (us) a person who lives in a swampy area.

roustabout

English

(wikipedia roustabout)

Noun

(en noun)
  • (chiefly, US) an unskilled laborer, especially at an oilfield, at a circus or on a ship

    • swamper

    English

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (US) A person who lives in a swampy area.
  • (US) A person who clears a road for lumberers in a forest or swamp.
  • *1860 , James Brown, New Brunswick as a Home for Emigrants , p. 10:
  • *:In the latter part of winter, I hired with a lumberer – camped out, and wrought in the forest as a swamper .
  • Someone or something that swamps or overwhelms.
  • *1991 , Kedar Nath Prasad, India's Rural Problems , p. 38:
  • *:The Population Factor is a dissipator or swamper of the gain in per capita income and hence of the redressal of poverty to that degree.
  • (North America, slang) A truck driver's assistant; an assistant to a driver of horses, mules or bullocks.
  • *1926 , Jacob Allred, "Driving the last 20-mule team across Death Valley", Popular Mechanics , Apr 1926, p. 610:
  • *:To use such a brake on the front wagon, the driver stood up on the seat, letting the team follow the leaders, and threw his whole weight on the upper end of the bar, while the swamper braked the rear wagon.
  • (Australia, slang) a person who travels by foot but has his belongings on a wagon.
  • * 1901 , May Vivienne, Travels in Western Australia: Being A Description of the Various Cities and Towns, Goldfields, and Agricultural Districts of that State , 1993, page 167,
    • On the road to the Diorite King, which is about 40 miles from Leonora, there was nothing much to see except a good many swampers'. A “' swamper ” is a man tramping without his swag, which he entrusts to a teamster to bring on his waggon.
  • *1936 , Sir John Kirwan, My Life's Adventure , p. 77:
  • *:He arrived at Western Australia the year after the discovery of gold at Coolgardie, and walked to the goldfields as a "swamper " – that is, he paid to have his belongings carried on a dray while he trudged along beside it.
  • (US) A handyman or general employee in a liquor saloon; a cook's assistant.
  • *1937 , John Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men , Penguin 1994, p. 19:
  • *:The old swamper shifted his broom and held it between his elbow and his side while he held out his hand for the can.