From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishnavvynav‧vy /ˈnævi/ noun (plural navvies) [countable] British English
Examples from the Corpus
navvy• Mrs Chambers must think she was feeding a navvy!• Mr Beavis was a navvy, and his sons worked at the Bermondsey shunting yards of the railway.• When the farm chores ended each day, Seb would often make his way to the camp of the road-building navvies.• Even today's less hungry navvies will surely object to this soon.• And hard labour ... the railway navvies remembered by a rock band.• Sorting the linen, the towels, the sheets, the red handkerchiefs, such as the navvies use.• The farmer had taken his Bible beneath his arm and visited the navvies earlier in the week.• The navvies and the bricklayers, masons and blacksmiths, would troop off to other masters.Origin navvy 