telephone operator
2
2.2
- noun
- /ˈtɛlɪˌfoʊn ˈɒpəreɪtə/
:
operador telefónico
- While some women worked in beer halls and cabarets, those with more education found jobs in department stores or as telephone operators, receptionists, secretaries, teachers, nurses, and journalists.
- telephone operator job
- retired telephone operator
- work as a telephone operator
Examples
-
During the depression, she was a telephone operator because of her fine English accent.
Blog text (27) -
The telephone operator told him it would be no more than an hour, but there had been an unusual number of calls, so it might be two.
Fiction book (2001) -
I called information, and the telephone operator said there was one Brinkerhoff listed in New Limerick.
Fiction book (2001) -
Government 911 and 311 telephone operators quickly and effectively responded to hundreds of thousands of individual calls for assistance and information.
Blog text (4) -
Unlike most of her classmates who were recent middle- or high school graduates, she had already served three years as a telephone operator in a coastal division and was older than most of them.
Fiction book (2000) -
As a telephone operator, she helps connect callers to the right people.
-
The telephone operator quickly directed my call to the customer service department.
-
In her role as a telephone operator, she answered calls and provided assistance to clients.
Synonyms
86
2.6
A person who greets visitors, answers the phone, and gives information at an office or hotel
1
5.8
A person who answers phones and connects callers to others
1
9.9
A person who answers many phone calls to help customers in a call center
A person who connects phone calls and directs callers to the right person
How Experienced
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'a person whose job is to assist telephone callers...' is directly and transparently derived from combining 'telephone' (device for voice communication) with 'operator' (a worker who operates equipment). This is a regular noun compound following common compositional patterns with clear cross-linguistic equivalents, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents will readily understand it.
Etymology
The compound noun telephone operator comes from early phone days when a person, the operator, sat at a board and plugged wires to join one telephone line to another. They literally 'connected' calls, so the name means someone who helps callers reach the person or service they want.