Word.ws English Dictionary

section gang

section gang noun: a railroad maintenance crew.

Noun

section gang (plural section gangs)

  1. A railroad maintenance crew.
    • [This dangerous portion of the line] was divided into patrols from three-fourths to one mile in length, and watchmen were put on night and day, to walk over the track after every train, to look out for broken rails, while the section gangs were held in readiness at all times to repair or replace...1875, Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, volume 3, page 115
    • They are not permanently tramps. They have home towns to which they return, to work quietly in the factory or the section-gang for a year—for a week—and as quietly to disappear again.1925, Sinclair Lewis, chapter 9, in Arrowsmith, page 97

Forms of section gang

pluralsection gangs
alternative formsection-gang

Questions about section gang

What does section gang mean?
Section gang means a railroad maintenance crew.
What part of speech is section gang?
Section gang is a noun.
What is the plural of section gang?
The plural of section gang is section gangs.

Words near section gang in the dictionary

  1. section automatic weapons
  2. section beam
  3. section beams
  4. section break
  5. section breaks
  6. section gang
  7. section gangs
  8. section liner
  9. section liners
  10. section sign
  11. section signs

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: section gang (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.

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