secretarial assistant
- noun
- /ˌsɛkrəˈtɛriəl əˈsɪstənt/
:
asistente administrativo
- As a secretarial assistant, she handled correspondence and organized documents for the executive team.
Examples
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The company hired a new secretarial assistant to manage phone calls and schedule meetings.
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Her duties as a secretarial assistant included filing paperwork and preparing reports.
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As a secretarial assistant, he supported several managers with their daily administrative tasks.
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The secretarial assistant answered the phone promptly.
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My secretarial assistants are very efficient.
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His job as a secretarial assistant involved arranging meetings and taking notes during conferences.
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The secretarial assistant filed important documents and managed the office's daily communications.
Synonyms
833
1.0
A person who helps someone with their work or tasks
496
1.3
A person who helps with office work like answering calls and doing paperwork
365
3.5
A person who helps someone in a job, for example a teacher or politician
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly compositional: 'secretarial' (related to the duties of a secretary) modifies 'assistant' (a person who helps), so a learner who knows both constituents will infer an assistant who performs secretarial/clerical tasks. This modifier+agent noun pattern is productive and cross-linguistically common, making the expression immediately understandable at B1.
Etymology
Secretarial assistant comes from the idea of a secretary, originally someone who kept private letters and papers, plus an assistant, a person who helps. So a secretarial assistant is someone who helps with letters, filing and other office tasks, which is why it means 'a person who handles correspondence and clerical work'.