Navigation

I've heard that the word "Navvy" meaning manual worker, comes from Navigator - the men who worked on the North American Railroad. I have a feeling that the word is older than that. Can any of you knowledgeable ones enlighten me please?

Doris

The Oxford English Dictionary says it comes from one sense of "navigator," defined as "a labourer employed in the work of excavating and constructing a canal, or, in later use, in any similar kind of earthwork." Earliest citation for this sense of "navigator" is dated 1775; for "navvy," 1832.

And "navigator" with that meaning comes from "navigation," which once meant "a canal or other artificial waterway. Now dial[ectal]" (OED).

I think that a canal is a newly constructed channel, while a navigation is a stream or river opened to use by boats.

"The UK's first new navigation for a century - the Millennium Ribble Link - was officially opened on Friday 20 September 2002 by the Rt. Hon. Margaret Beckett, Secretary of State for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs. As this project is a navigation, and not a canal, boats will only be permitted to stop at specific mooring sites and these will not be located close to dwellings."