What is the slang roughneck?
1a : a rough or uncouth person. b : rowdy, tough. 2 : a worker of an oil-well-drilling crew other than the driller. roughneck.
Why do they call them roughnecks?
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.
