How to Use roughneck in a Sentence

roughneck

noun
  • Booms are great for those riding them, like roughnecks and tech workers.
    — Kate Galbraith, SFChronicle.com, 7 Aug. 2019
  • There are fewer roughnecks, as my old landlord had warned, to trash the place.
    — Longreads, 23 Apr. 2018
  • Does a roughneck working on an oil rig need to be instructed to wear steel-toe boots?
    — WSJ, 7 Mar. 2023
  • Somebody’s oil worker boyfriend might trash the place; indeed, the last round of roughnecks already have.
    — Longreads, 23 Apr. 2018
  • As prices tumbled, roughnecks, truck divers and engineers quickly lost their jobs.
    — Fortune, 14 Apr. 2020
  • Aussie roughnecks and their families arrived en masse, bringing beer, pies, and music.
    — Sean Williams, Harper's Magazine, 23 Sep. 2024
  • During the down period, Foster worked as a roughneck and learned to be a welder and fix his own tractor.
    — Tyler Bridges, NOLA.com, 4 Oct. 2020
  • Zeus did not approve of his daughter fooling around with this mortal roughneck hunter and put out a hit on Orion.
    — Mike Lynch, Twin Cities, 8 Mar. 2026
  • But watching a group of roughnecks on a rig in grubby overalls moving huge, long steel pipes, Dugan's smile begins to fade to a smirk.
    — Kirk Siegler, NPR, 24 Apr. 2025
  • The front portion was a roughneck men’s bar, and the back was a small late-night lounge that catered seemingly exclusively to women.
    — Maggie Menderski, The Courier-Journal, 24 June 2021
  • Another was a hat made of Bakelite, an early form of plastic that stood up to the rigors of roughneck labor.
    — David Kindy, Smithsonian Magazine, 21 Feb. 2020
  • Like many cities at this time, Baltimore had its share of roughnecks, pick pockets, petty thieves, charlatans and card sharks.
    — John Wilmerding, WSJ, 28 Sep. 2018
  • Cox would work his way up from a roustabout and roughneck to eventually leading an oil and gas company as well as other notable businesses.
    — Dallas News, 7 Nov. 2020
  • But this is a look at the more dynamic version, like the roughnecks out in the patch and the offices in Dallas and Fort Worth.
    — Jackie Strause, HollywoodReporter, 17 Nov. 2025
  • In 1989, Panguna shuttered, and its roughnecks fled from Arawa.
    — Sean Williams, Harper's Magazine, 23 Sep. 2024
  • During my trip, Moore’s corps of consultants and roughnecks were drilling the fifth borehole of their experimental project.
    — Brent Crane, The New Yorker, 2 Mar. 2025
  • Local agency Legacy Casting is putting out a call for real-life oil and gas workers, or roughnecks, to appear in the show.
    — Brayden Garcia, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 14 Aug. 2025
  • Matt Damon stars as the Oklahoman, a goateed, denim-wearing roughneck named Bill with a sad past.
    — Mark Kennedy, Detroit Free Press, 30 July 2021
  • The gamble City leaders see their town’s history as a bankable asset, a way to bring people and their dollars back to the city — not roughnecks, but tourists.
    — Randy Diamond, San Antonio Express-News, 7 Feb. 2020
  • Young Texans can no longer get by as oil-field roughnecks and farmhands, many here say, and schools must start to train them for jobs in newer technological industries.
    — Maggie Astor, New York Times, 6 Aug. 2017
  • His loathing of Rose and Peter seems to spring from something deeper and more vindictive than standard roughneck ignorance.
    — Los Angeles Times, 16 Nov. 2021
  • It’s set in Granite City, an everyday dystopia where Stallone lugs his body around with a reluctant roughneck shamble.
    — Owen Gleiberman, Variety, 25 Aug. 2022
  • The show focuses on roughnecks and billionaires in West Texas who are trying to get rich as the oil industry continues to take over the state.
    — Lori A Bashian, FOXNews.com, 9 May 2026
  • In those days, long past, the progress of operations carried out on an oilfield location was determined solely by the grit and tenacity of the workers involved, the roughnecks.
    — Matt Randolph, Forbes.com, 10 July 2025
  • As the roughneck in love with Harry's frisky daughter, Ben Affleck flexes resolute muscle with his heady performance.
    — Duane Byrge, The Hollywood Reporter, 1 July 2019
  • The show seems organically suited for a more action comedy take, given Hooker’s old style and often roughneck crime fighting style, which seemed out of place in a more woke world.
    — Mike Fleming Jr, Deadline, 5 Aug. 2025
  • Beyond his duties as a host and journalist, the native West Texan spent time working as an oil roughneck himself, and grew up in a family with members in the fields.
    — William Earl, Variety, 22 Dec. 2025
  • Canvas magic Michael Perry could be described as a roughneck Garrison Keillor.
    — John Bordsen, chicagotribune.com, 9 May 2017
  • Times are uncertain for those old-school roughnecks that still go to work every day in the patch; their numbers are much smaller in size as operations move at the speed of light due to efficiency; new workers come in with new skills.
    — Matt Randolph, Forbes.com, 10 July 2025
  • Dawayne Tipton, 41, is a Killeen oil engineer who has worked as a roughneck, on offshore rigs and as an inspector of oil facilities for the private sector.
    — Dallas News, 15 Feb. 2022

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'roughneck.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Last Updated: