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.
1828–32. Webster, Stevedore, one whose occupation is to stow goods, packages, &c. in a ship’s 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 and dock-wallopers.
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.
