lighterman

lighterman

English

Etymology

lighter +‎ -man

Noun

lighterman (plural lightermen)

1. (nautical) One employed on, owning, or managing a lighter.
   • 1622, Ben Jonson, The Masque of Augurs, The First Antimasque, in The Works of Ben Jonson, London: D. Midwinter et al., 1756, Volume 6, p. 122,

     A poor lighterman, sir, one that hath had the honour sometimes to lay in the king’s beer there […]

   • 1766, The Annual Register, July 1766, p. 115,

     One Dobson, a lighterman, undertook, for a wager of five guineas, to swim on his back from Westminster bridge to Putney bridge in an hour and three quarters, without turning himself in the water; which he performed 19 minutes within the time.

   • 1898, H. G. Wells, The War of the Worlds, Book One, Chapter 17,

     At that the Pool became a scene of mad confusion, fighting, and collision, and for some time a multitude of boats and barges jammed in the northern arch of the Tower Bridge, and the sailors and lightermen had to fight savagely against the people who swarmed upon them from the riverfront.

   • 1934, Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall, Pitcairn’s Island, Chapter 2,

     [ Alex Smith ] was a lighterman on the Thames at the time Bligh was signing on the Bounty men, but he hated the business and was only waiting for a suitable opportunity to go to sea again.