A person employed to do work by the day; a laborer paid on a daily basis.
From 'daywork' plus '-er' (agent suffix). This term emerged alongside industrialization to denote workers who lacked permanent employment contracts.
Dayworkers were the precarious workers of their time—no job security, no benefits, dependent on daily hiring—which makes modern 'gig workers' not so new after all, just with smartphones!
Complete word intelligence in one call. Free tier — 50 lookups/day.