- skip - Brewer’s

Navvy

.

A contraction of navigator. One employed to make railways.

“Canals were thought of as lines of inland navigation and a tavern built by the side of a canal was called a ‘Navigation Inn.ʹ Hence it happened that the men employed in exoavating canals were called ‘navigators,ʹ shortened into navvies.”—Spencer: Principles of Sociology, vol. i. appendix C, p. 834.

 

previous entry · index · next entry

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.

previous entry · index · next entry

Native
Nativity (The)
Natty
Natty Bumppo
Natural (A)
Nature
Naught (not “nought”)
Naught
Naughty Figs (Jeremiah xxiv. 2)
Navigation
Navvy
Nay-word
Nayres
Nazaræans or Nazarenes
Nazarene
Nazareth
Nazarite
Ne plus Ultra (Latin)
Ne Sutor, etc
Neæra
Neapolitan