Also 8 stowadore, 9 (Dicts.) stivadore. [a. Sp. estivador, agent-n. f. estivar to stow a cargo: see STEEVE v.2, STIVE v.
A med.L. stivator in the same sense, together with the verb stivare, occurs A.D. 1263 in Mas Latrie Traités de Paix (1868), Docum., 39, 40.]
A workman employed either as overseer or laborer in loading and unloading the cargoes of merchant vessels.
1788. Massachusetts Spy, 10 July, 2/3. Stowadores.
182832. Webster, Stevedore, one whose occupation is to stow goods, packages, &c. in a ships hold. New York.
1850. Blackw. Mag., July, 54/1. Up mounted four or five stevedores [Cape Town].
1856. Kane, Arct. Expl., II. xvii. 181. We scrambled off over the ice together, much like a gang of stevedores going to work over a quayful of broken cargo.
1870. Standard, 17 Nov., 6/7. The plaintiff was employed by Kennedy, a stevedore, in unloading the steam ship Sutherland.
1899. F. T. Bullen, Log Sea-waif, 6. The litter of cases, bales, etc., about the deck was fast disappearing under the strenuous exertions of the stevedores.
fig. 1867. F. H. Ludlow, Little Brother, etc. 257. These stevedores of learning, the schoolmasters.
attrib. 1898. Daily News, 16 April, 2/7. He was foreman of stevedore labourers.
1909. Suppl. E. Essex Advertiser, 21 Aug., 4/3. One of the largest stevedore contractors.