motorman

English

Etymology

From motor +‎ -man.

Noun

motorman (plural motormen)

1. (dated) A man who controls a motor.
2. (dated) A person who operates a motor vehicle.

   Hypernym: motorist

3. (India) A train driver.

   Coordinate terms: brakeman, fireman

   Near-synonym: engineer

4. (UK) An electric train or tram driver.

   Coordinate term: brakeman

   Near-synonym: engineer

   • 1943 July and August, “Top Link Drivers: VII—Driver Matthew Morton, L.N.E.R.”, in Railway Magazine, page 220:

     Four years later, on May 27, 1898, he was promoted to fireman, and worked on all types of freight trains until November 27, 1911, when he was transferred to Heaton and became a motorman on the Tyneside electric services. After a spell of just over eight years as a motorman, he returned to Gateshead as a driver, and apart from a further short period as a motorman, he was employed at the Gateshead depot, first as a pilot driver, and then as a freight train driver.

   • 1961 March, “Talking of trains: Collision at Waterloo”, in Trains Illustrated, page 138:

     The electric train motorman denied emphatically that he had misread this train's signals for his own and asserted that the inner home signal on the up main through line for his train was displaying a green aspect, with the indicator showing platform 14.

   • 2023 December 27, David Turner, “Silent lines...”, in RAIL, number 999, page 29:

     But to no avail - the suburban (Sunday) service ground to a halt, with only 20 of the 268 motormen turning up for work on Boxing Day [1949]. Kempton Park races lost 10,000 visitors, with the cancellation of 12 extra race day trains.

Derived terms

• motorman's friend

References

• “motorman”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.