navvy [E19th] A navvy is a labourer employed in building a road or railway. The word is a 19th-century shortening of navigator [L16th], which in the 18th century was a labourer employed in the rapidly expanding enterprise of canal construction (in parts of England a canal is known as a navigation). Navigate comes from the Latin word for ship, navis, which gave rise to navy [ME], and also, because of its shape, to the nave [E16th] or long central part of a church. The ultimate root of navis is the Greek word for ship, naus (see nausea).