- Today's Word
Roustabout
[ROUSE-tuh-bout]
Definition
- (noun) An unskilled laborer who did odd jobs, particularly on oil rigs or in circuses. In modern usage, it can describe someone who works at various unskilled jobs or a person who is rough and rowdy.
Example
Before settling into his career as a teacher, Jack spent a few years as a roustabout, traveling from town to town and picking up whatever work he could find.
Fun Fact
The term “roustabout” first appeared in the mid-19th century in the United States. It’s believed to be a combination of “roust” (to drive out or eject) and “about.” Initially, it was often associated with dock workers and sailors, then later with circus workers who would set up and take down tents and equipment. In the oil industry, roustabouts perform various manual labor tasks around oil rigs. The word has also been popularized in music, most notably in Elvis Presley’s song “Roustabout” from the 1964 film of the same name.
(adjective) So fundamentally different in kind that comparison or combination is difficult or impossible.
The committee was made up of disparate voices — a retired military general, a teenage climate activist, a Wall Street banker, and a rural farmer — who somehow had to reach a single consensus.
Disparate comes from the Latin disparatus, the past participle of disparare — “to separate” — built from dis- (“apart”) and parare (“to prepare” or “to arrange”). It entered English in the 16th century, used to describe things so fundamentally unlike one another that they resist any meaningful comparison or grouping. It shares its Latin root with separate, making the two words distant cousins whose shared ancestry reflects their shared meaning.