hobo synonymous with panhandler or beggar

[James A. Landau <JJJRLandau@netscape.com>]

My father insisted that "tramp" was an honorable rather than pejorative term for a migratory worker.

He was a newspaperman, and in his field there was a long tradition of "tramp printers".  These were skilled workers in the printing field who traveled from job to job, staying at one location (typically a newspaper) as long or as short as they wished and then travelling on to a new job.

I checked four online dictionaries (urbandictionary, thefreedictionary, dictionary.com, and Merriam-Webster), and none of them gave the definition of tramp as a worker, perhaps a skilled worker, who travelled between jobs.

    - James A. Landau

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