Sandhog
noun, verb, slang ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
- 1 A person employed to dig tunnels, or (more generally) to work underground or under water. US, also, figuratively, slang
"Sandhogs working behind a hydraulic shield excavated the riverbed silt inch by inch and installed linking sections of cast-iron tubes as they went. The digging chamber was filled with compressed air pumped in from the surface. The work was dangerous. The men who did the work, the sandhogs, were considered heroes."
- 1 To work at digging tunnels, or (more generally) underground or under water. US, intransitive, slang
Example
More examples"Sandhogs working behind a hydraulic shield excavated the riverbed silt inch by inch and installed linking sections of cast-iron tubes as they went. The digging chamber was filled with compressed air pumped in from the surface. The work was dangerous. The men who did the work, the sandhogs, were considered heroes."
Etymology
From sand + hog, perhaps alluding to a hog (“animal of the Suidae family, especially a boar, pig, or warthog”) digging in sand.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.