Swagman

Quick meaning: Swagman is a noun meaning (British, archaic) A person who sells or trades in trinkets or items of low value.

Meaning

(British, archaic) A person who sells or trades in trinkets or items of low value.

More Meanings

1. (US, slang) A middleman who buys and sells stolen goods; a fence.
2. (Australia, New Zealand, historical) A man who travels around with a swag (“bundle of personal items”); specifically, an itinerant person, often seeking work in exchange for food and lodging.

Example Sentences

[T]he class who exercise the most depressing influence on these rates, little as the unhappy men think themselves so, will be found to consist of idlers and swagmen.

The policeman thought it best to surprise the man, since he might be armed, so he disguised himself as a swagman and pounced as the man returned from his bridge-painting job.

In his prose works Landlopers and Knocking Round, [John Le Gay] Brereton penned affectionate portraits of shearers, swagmen and farmers' wives, based on people he had met on his walks.

Oh! there once was a swagman camped in a Billabong, / Under the shade of a Coolabah tree; / And he sang as he looked at his old billy boiling, / "Who'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me?"

Word Forms

• swagmen

Synonyms for swagman

Depending on context, synonyms include hobo, sundowner, swagger, swaggie, swagsman, traveller.

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include swagsman, swaggie, swagwoman, swaggy, swagger, swag.

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