From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishroughneckrough‧neck /ˈrʌfnek/ noun [countable] especially American English informal 1 BOTPGsomeone who works on an oil well2 RUDE/IMPOLITEa man who usually behaves in a rough, rude, or angry way
Examples from the Corpus
roughneck• I liked playing dodgeball, tossing snowballs, being a roughneck.• A stream of complaints to Bloomsbury House led to the sacking of the more objectionable roughnecks. 