noun.
A laborer employed for temporary or unskilled jobs, as in an oil field.
noun.
A circus laborer.
noun.
A deck or wharf laborer, especially on the Mississippi River.
The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
noun.
See rouse-about.
noun.
A common wharf-laborer or deck-hand, originally one on the Mississippi or other western river.
the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English
noun.
A laborer, especially a deck hand, on a river steamboat, who moves the cargo, loads and unloads wood, and the like; in an opprobrious sense, a shiftless vagrant who lives by chance jobs.