[f. LIGHTER sb.1 + MAN sb.]
1. One employed on or owning a lighter.
1558. Act 1 Eliz., c. 11 § 6. Any Wharfinger,… Lyghterman, Weigter or other Officer.
1608. H. Wright, in Lismore Papers, Ser. II. (1887), I. 126. To paye the lyter men for caryinge downe the plancks.
1766. Entick, London, IV. 145. Lightermen … are to be of the society of watermen and wherrymen.
1861. Hughes, Tom Brown at Oxf., xxi. (1889), 198. He believes that the men of the uppermost bank [of a trireme] rowed somehow like lightermen on the Thames.
1865. Dickens, Mut. Fr., I. i. He could not be a lighterman or river-carrier.
2. ? = LIGHTER sb.1 (Cf. Indiaman; also LIGHTMAN.)
1769. Ann. Reg., 132. The flames … destroyed … two large lightermen on the river.
