roughneck

/ˌrʌfˈnɛk/

Other forms: roughnecks

A roughneck is a troublemaker who gets in a lot of fights and doesn’t have good manners. Roughnecks are also men who work at dangerous, grueling hard-labor jobs. Maybe that’s why they’re so mad.

Roughnecks weren’t always brutes — the term comes from Texas and used to just refer to a “rugged individual.” Then it was a word for someone who worked on an oil rig. But now a roughneck is someone, usually a big man, who’s tough, crude, and ready to fight. Roughnecks are the opposite of mild-mannered people. Roughnecks are uneducated and foul-mouthed. They’re the kind of people your parents warn you about.

Definitions of roughneck

1. noun

   a cruel and brutal fellow
   synonyms: bully, hooligan, rowdy, ruffian, tough, yob, yobbo, yobo

   types:

   bullyboy

   a swaggering tough; usually one acting as an agent of a political faction

   muscle, muscleman

   a bully employed as a thug or bodyguard

   skinhead

   a young person who belongs to a British or American group that shave their heads and gather at rock concerts or engage in white supremacist demonstrations

   plug-ugly, tough guy

   someone who bullies weaker people

   Ted, Teddy boy

   a tough youth of 1950's and 1960's wearing Edwardian style clothes

   type of:

   aggressor, assailant, assaulter, attacker

   someone who attacks