a superintendent of underground work in a mine.
- 1918  Vein sampling engineers, grubstakers, rock-worms, mine captains, prospectors and agents in coats of " astrachan goose " . . . strut about and add to their kit, each man jack of them probably thinking he has a "nose for ore" and inside information.
- 1964  By tradition, an underground superintendent is known as a Mine Captain: his principal assistants in supervision being the shift-bosses or shifters. This last term has come to mean not only the supervisor during a shift of working hours, but the foreman of workers in a given area of the mine.