road gang

noun

1. a group of workers employed to repair or build roads.
2. (in the U.S.) a detail of prisoners set to repairing a road.

Word History and Origins

Origin of road gang¹

First recorded in 1885–90

Example Sentences

And hard labor on road gangs in the Panama Canal Zone looked a lot like the chain gangs used to consign Black people to prison slavery in the South.

From Salon

Jackson answered while working on a road gang to fulfill his sentence, picking up trash on the side of a Michigan highway.

From Washington Post

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., holder of degrees from at least five colleges, may spend the time on a road gang if an appeal is denied.

From Washington Times

Each day for the past five months, a road gang has toiled on a Sisyphean task along the muddy Atlantic Coast, trying to fill a breach in a 60-mile sea wall with stones and sand.

From New York Times

The Stop/Go man with one of the road gangs says things are better on the Numbinbah Valley Road, another of my favourite motorbike routes back to the Gold Coast.

From The Guardian