ventman

Noun

ventman (plural ventmen)

1. A homeless person who stays in front of a vent to keep warm.
   • Charles is a ventman with beautiful dreads. On days when he is not drinking and is lucid, he will tell you how he winters on the south side of the square and sleeps facing the east so that he wakes with the sun in his eyes.1986, Joseph Beam, “Brother to Brother: Words from the Heart”, in Joseph Beam, editor, In The Life: A Black Gay Anthology, page 241
   • […] a ventman appears, palm outstretched. So this is where they come from, Ruineux thinks, sizing up the sooty apparition.2002, Edward Desautels, A Flicker in the Porthole Glass
2. An artilleryman with charge of the touch hole.
   • 1st ventman steps up to the breech, passing the tube or primer into the left hand; he pricks with the right, and enters the tube or primer with the left hand, then places the left hand flat upon it1852, Exercises in Small-arms and Field Artillery
   • The loader inserted the bagged powder charge into the tube and the spongeman shoved it home with the ram end of his swab, while the ventman placed his leathercased thumb over the vent as further insurance against premature explosion due to unextinguished embers1984, Albert A. Nofi, Napoleon at War