wheel-barrow man

Noun

wheel-barrow man (plural wheel-barrow men)

1. (US, historical) A convict sentenced to hard labor in the 1800s, especially one sentenced to work maintaining the roads.
   • At the outset of the reformatory process in Pennsylvania, it was thought that a salutary effect would result from long continued, visible, or public punishment, by degrading labour in the streets or upon the highways ; ... and many persons, now living, can distinctly remember when convicts...1845, Pennsylvania Journal of Prison Discipline and Philanthropy, page 3
   • Are crimes more frequent in that country than in the other States ? Are there more executions ? I believe there have been as few as in any part of the Continent, and those which have token place have been generally of emigrant convicts, or fugitive •wheel-barrow men ; he would be bold to assert...1860, Thomas Hart Benton, Abridgment of the Debates of Congress, from 1789 to 1856
2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see wheel-barrow, man.; a man working with a wheel-barrow.