Navvy

Now part of Standard English (in Britain at least) navvy is an abbreviation of navigator and is first attested from the early 19th century. These days, navvies are of course manual labourers involved in construction work, but during the 18th century, ‘navigators’, as they were called, were involved in constructing Britain’s canals, which in those days were also known as ‘navigations’. Over time, navigations became more familiar as canals but the name navigators for the labourers who worked on them stuck and was eventually abbreviated to navvies.