ruffneck
ruffneck is the alternative form of roughneck.
Meaning of roughneck
Noun
roughneck (plural roughnecks)
- A labourer on an oil rig or in the oilpatch, either skilled or semiskilled.
- This first ship had a small geophysical-type drilling rig mounted over the side of the ship with a steel grid runround for the roughnecks, who stood in knee-deep water while making connections or pulling the drill string.1992, Elmer P. Wheaton, “William Bradford Whitehill Rand”, in Memorial Tributes: Volume 5, page 234
- Synonyms:
- roustabout
- A dirty or low-paid worker, a labourer; an ironworker in an ironworks or a steelworker in a steelworks.
- Synonyms:
- roustabout
- Someone with rough manners; a rowdy or uncouth person.
- LaTisha has long wanted to show Carole sheʼs not the roughneck she used to be, the roughneck who wasnʼt good enough to be her friend.2019, Bernardine Evaristo, Girl, Woman, Other, Penguin Books (2020), page 202
Forms of ruffneck
| plural | ruffnecks |
|---|
Origin of ruffneck
Sensational spelling.
Questions about ruffneck
- What is ruffneck the alternative form of?
- Ruffneck is the alternative form of roughneck.
Words near ruffneck in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: ruffneck (page history and authors); roughneck (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Cite this entry: “ruffneck.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/ruffneck. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.