Stevedore
[STEE-vi-dohr]
Part of speech: noun
Origin: Spanish, 18th century
1.
A person employed, or a contractor engaged, at a dock to load and unload cargo from ships.
Examples of Stevedore in a sentence
"My cousin works as a stevedore at the Port of Los Angeles."
"During my years as a stevedore, I moved cargo from virtually every country on the planet."
About Stevedore
“Stevedore” is based on the Spanish word “estibador,” based on the Spanish verb “estibar,” meaning “to load.”
Did you Know?
Stevedores — also called “longshoremen” and “dockworkers” — are not nearly as common as they used to be, as a result of the rise of shipping containers in the 1960s. Prior to that time, every ship arriving in port needed to be carefully loaded and unloaded full of individual pieces of cargo that had to be tied down in place. The emergence of shipping containers changed all that: Virtually all goods today are shipped in standardized, stackable containers that can be easily moved with cranes. As a result, the number of dockworkers has plummeted; there are more than 90% fewer stevedores on the docks today than in the years following World War II. However, somebody must still manage loading and unloading shipping containers, and that remains the job of stevedores.
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