How do you use "laborer, worker, workman"?
Are they pretty much interchangeable? How do you use them? Do particular jobs prefer to use one word over the others?

Thank you.

Question

How do you use "laborer, worker, workman"?
Are they pretty much interchangeable? How do you use them? Do particular jobs prefer to use one word over the others?

Thank you.

Answer

'laborer' and 'workman' usually refer to manual or physical labor, but ' worker' might be related to any field  (like a 'social worker')

Answer

“Worker” is common. The others aren’t. “Workman” is old-fashioned and the only way I would ever use “laborer” is part of the expression “day laborer” (somebody who is hired one day at a time)

Answer

Where I'm from, labourer (in Commonwealth spelling) generally only refers to unskilled or semi-skilled manual labourers. It is used a lot more to describe workers in the past in an academic setting, but I think that's largely because workforces of the past did tend to have a greater proportion of less skilled and more manually involved workers.

Worker can really refer to anyone who works at a job, even including members of middle management depending on the context. If you have more specific questions regarding the use of that term they might be more useful to ask.

Workman is pretty informal (in Australia, anyway) and I've heard it most commonly used when referring to tradesmen and/or labourers who are working in public, especially on construction projects in the street and roadworks. It helps that they're extremely male dominated work environments here and the term can be used (though informally) with little confusion.

Answer

'laborer' and 'workman' usually refer to manual or physical labor, but ' worker' might be related to any field  (like a 'social worker')

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