ˈpowder-ˌmonkey
a. A humorous term for a powder-boy on board ship. Also fig. Now also (U.S.) a term for a member of a blasting crew; = powder-man c.
| 1682 Shadwell Medal Ep. A iv, Heaven keep us from Juries such as will give 800 l. dammages to a Powder⁓monkey. 1759 Compl. Letter-writer (ed. 6) 225 Her powder⁓monkey was Dick Cummings, ogling and winking. 1815 Scott Guy M. lii, Ellangowan had him placed as cabin-boy, or powder-monkey on board an armed sloop. 1879 Cassell's Techn. Educ. IV. 62/1 When his son Henry was twelve years old, he was employed as a ‘powder-monkey’ in making and filling blank and ball cartridges. 1926 Amer. Speech II. 87/2 Dynamite is brought to the miner by the powder monkey. 1937 Nat. Geogr. Mag. Aug. 149/1 Hither and yon darted the ‘powder monkeys’, packing dynamite in the holes, shooting loose great masses of salt, which others broke up and loaded into trucks. 1939 W. Faulkner Wild Palms 118 Suits from wop pick-and-shovel men and bohunk powder-monkeys and chink ore-trimmers. 1951 Publ. Amer. Dial. Soc. xv. 74 Monkey in various combinations has become a favorite term for handyman. There are derrick monkeys, pump monkeys, boiler monkeys, and powder monkeys. 1976 M. Machlin Pipeline xviii. 227 This time they wanted two powder monkeys, a couple of drillers..and four jobs for straight camp labor. |
b. (See quot. 1893.)
| 1882 Jefferies Bevis III. iv. 63 How to take the honey was not so easily settled, till they thought of making a powder-monkey, and so smoking them out. 1893 Wilts. Gloss., Powder-monkey, damp gunpowder, moulded into a ‘devil’ or cake which will smoulder slowly, used by boys for stupefying a wasp's nest. |