gandy dancer
nounEtymology Uncertain; see Wikipedia for various speculative etymologies.
1
US, Idiomatic A railway laborer, especially a member of a crew which carries rails and affixes them to ties.
- Gandy dancer—A section hand or track laborer.1929, Vernon W. Saul, “The Vocabulary of Bums”, in American Speech, volume 4, number 5, page 340:
- The oddest gandy-dancer on the railroads in Manitoba during the summer of 1926 was a 6-ft. 4-in. American medical student named Ben Spock.1959 May 18, “Bush Teachers”, in Time, retrieved 14 Sep 2008:
1 more example
- In railroad slang, a gandy dancer is a track worker, one who lays or maintains track.1981 May 3, Edward C. Burks, “Amtrak Changes on Schedule”, in New York Times, retrieved 11 Jun 2014:
- Related terms
- gandy dance, gandy dancing