telegraph operator
2
7.1
- noun
- /ˈtɛlɪˌɡræf ˈɒpəreɪtə/
- Archaic
:
operador de telégrafo
- The large main room is filled with telegraph operators receiving election returns.
- telegraph operator received
Examples
-
The telegraph operator quickly sent the urgent message to the remote station.
-
She paid for the telegram and listened attentively when the telegraph operator gave her directions to the Convent of the Sisters of Mercy.
Fiction book (1991) -
Even the telegraph operator was crying.
-
The telegraph operator sends a signal
Fiction book (1999) -
And in his discussion with the telegraph operators, Lincoln talked about Euclid.
Blog text (11) -
A land-bound telegraph operator could transmit as many as eight words per minute.
Academic text (2011) -
My maternal grandfather worked as a telegraph operator for Canadian Marconi on Signal Hill for many years.
Blog text (25) -
The crowded main room of Boss Tweed's domain, jammed with anxious politicos and officials, as well as a harried group of telegraph operators who receive news of the riots from all over Manhattan.
Fiction book (2002) -
His attention is drawn to a harried telegraph operator, who is being shouted at by natives as he is inundated by pieces of paper and teetering volumes of the voting registry.
Fiction book (2002) -
Every morning, the telegraph operator would receive messages from ships at sea.
Synonyms
1
9.2
A person who sends and receives messages by coded signals over wires
A person who sends and receives messages by telegraph
A person who sends messages by cable between distant places
A person who sends messages by telegram
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'a person who sends and receives messages using a telegraph' is directly and compositionally derived from the constituents 'telegraph' (the device/network for Morse messages) and 'operator' (a worker who operates equipment). This occupational compound follows a common and transparent noun+noun pattern found across languages, so a B1 learner who knows both words will readily infer the MWE meaning.
Etymology
Telegraph operator comes from long ago when people used the telegraph machine to send messages and the operator was the person who ran it. The operator sat by the machine tapping 'dots and dashes' to send words along wires, so the term means 'a person who sends and receives messages using a telegraph'.