The navvy was a fine specimen of humanity, with a complexion tanned a dusky coffee colour.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Right Stuff Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton] Reference

He can doff them and work like a 'navvy' when he sees reason.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded] Reference

It was in the formation of this, the true beginning of railways, that the British "navvy" was called into being.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Iron Horse] Reference

"navvy," had just disposed of a supply of rugs and was wending his way homeward at the same time.    From Wordnik.com.  [I Married a Ranger] Reference

A navvy employed in digging or repairing fen drains.    From Wordnik.com.  [Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter] Reference

"I know navvy-class mechs when I see 'em," Besen said.    From Wordnik.com.  [Tides Of Light]

Though I'm rigged like a navvy, she'll love me no less.    From Wordnik.com.  [Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 102, May 7, 1892] Reference

Sunday could convert one average navvy or counter-jumper.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Man Who Was Thursday] Reference

He tried to visualize the man as a navvy and failed miserably.    From Wordnik.com.  [Mourn Not Your Dead] Reference

"And I was a navvy before the war, and joined up for a change.".    From Wordnik.com.  [Pushed and the Return Push] Reference

"I'm a navvy short," was his one retort that reached unto my ears.    From Wordnik.com.  [McAlpine's Fusiliers] Reference

She felt she had scored quite a victory when the navvy bought a copy.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Angel Adjutant of "Twice Born Men"] Reference

'Poor creature,' said the navvy, 'it amuses her, and does not hurt me.'.    From Wordnik.com.  [Sketch of Handel and Beethoven Two Lectures, Delivered in the Lecture Hall of the Wimbledon Village Club, on Monday Evening, Dec. 14, 1863; and Monday Evening, Jan. 11, 1864] Reference

Valla had been a typical site navvy, ruddy-skinned and slightly paunchy.    From Wordnik.com.  [A Body In The Bath House]

'I didn't enlist as a blooming navvy,' grunted Roy Horan, who had stuck by.    From Wordnik.com.  [On Land and Sea at the Dardanelles] Reference

The high wages of the navvy are offset by the disadvantages of his employment.    From Wordnik.com.  [Recent Developments in European Thought] Reference

Suddenly an old woman, peering under the arm of the big navvy, screamed sharply.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Invisible Man] Reference

Yet he toiled from morning to night, year in year out, more like a navvy than an.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Life of Sir Richard Burton] Reference

A chaplain thus turning himself into a navvy is probably no breach of the Geneva.    From Wordnik.com.  [With the Guards' Brigade from Bloemfontein to Koomati Poort and Back] Reference

I gestured with one hand and nearly hit an enormous navvy coming out of the cafe.    From Wordnik.com.  [A Monstrous Regiment of Women]

We drew a plumber and a navvy (road builder) -- and the grub tasted of both trades.    From Wordnik.com.  [A Yankee in the Trenches] Reference

I thoroughly enjoyed it all the same, and all the while did my full share of navvy work.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde"] Reference

The navvy is an inland navigator who used to dig dykes and canals and now constructs railroads.    From Wordnik.com.  [Recent Developments in European Thought] Reference

Oh, I sleep like a baby, eat like a navvy, and in years have not enjoyed such physical well-being.    From Wordnik.com.  [CHAPTER XLIV] Reference

As a child, one of the most dreadful things I could imagine was to drink out of a bottle after a navvy.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Road to Wigan Pier] Reference

He belonged to no club, and his circle of friends, except in the houri and navvy line, was very limited.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Three Clerks] Reference

The Irish emigrant seldom or never takes to the land when he goes to America, and navvy work just suited him.    From Wordnik.com.  [Against Home Rule (1912) The Case for the Union] Reference

Even the ladies, regardless of blisters and the snowy whiteness of their hands, revelled in the role of navvy.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Siege of Kimberley] Reference

‘Poor Screwy forgot the time of year,’ said another navvy; ‘he ought to have called it lamb and grass.’.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Three Clerks] Reference

And thus was this wild wolf to be led into the sheep-cote; this infernal navvy to be introduced among the angels of Surbiton.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Three Clerks] Reference

But I have yet to meet a working miner, steel-worker, cotton-weaver, docker, navvy, or whatnot who was ‘ideologically’ sound.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Road to Wigan Pier] Reference

Whereupon the archdeacon declared with a loud laugh that he would tell Miss Thorne that her new minister had likened her to a navvy.    From Wordnik.com.  [Barchester Towers] Reference

At an adjoining spot he begins flourishing the tools anew with the skill of a navvy, this venerable scholar with letters after his name.    From Wordnik.com.  [A Changed Man] Reference

After trying his hand at a variety of trades there, he went to Scotland about 1817 as a navvy, and in 1827 was living in a lodging-house in.    From Wordnik.com.  [Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 "Bulgaria" to "Calgary"] Reference

The English navvy was found to be the first workman in the world.    From Wordnik.com.  [Lectures and Essays] Reference