Plural of ganger; workers or foremen who supervise groups of laborers on construction or railway projects.
From 'ganger,' derived from Middle English 'gang' (a group of workers) plus the agent suffix '-er.' The word evolved in British English during the Industrial Revolution to describe supervisory workers on large labor gangs.
Gangers were essential to building the British railway network in the 1800s—they organized thousands of workers, and their names appear in historical records as invisible architects of infrastructure. The term shows how English created new jobs by combining 'gang' (already meaning a group) with '-er' to make 'one who leads a gang.'
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