fireman
Americannoun
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a person employed to extinguish or prevent fires; firefighter.
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a person employed to tend fires; stoker.
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Railroads.
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a person employed to fire and lubricate a steam locomotive.
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a person employed to assist the engineer of a diesel or electric locomotive.
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U.S. Navy. an enlisted person assigned to the care and operation of a ship's machinery.
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British Mining. fire boss.
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Baseball. relief pitcher.
noun
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Gender-neutral form: firefighter. a man who fights fires, usually a public employee or trained volunteer
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(on steam locomotives) the man who stokes the fire and controls the injectors feeding water to the boiler
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(on diesel and electric locomotives) the driver's assistant
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a man who tends furnaces; stoker
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US equivalent: fire boss. Also called: deputy. a mine official responsible for safety precautions
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navy a junior rating who works on marine engineering equipment
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informal any employee who is dispatched to deal with trouble at short notice
Gender
See -man.
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of fireman
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
"As I recall he was very rarely there," said the former fireman from Gwynedd.
From BBC ● Jan. 5, 2026
Replete with Constructivist angles, it’s an unsentimental account of a woman who tells her fireman husband he isn’t the father of their newborn.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 17, 2025
Once again, he is both arsonist and fireman.
From Salon ● Oct. 31, 2025
“It could be winds, brush clearance, luck,” said Scott Brown, a fireman assigned to Los Angeles County Fire Station 66 about a mile east in Kinneloa Canyon.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 17, 2025
The fireman seemed to feel the need to explain.
From "Nine, Ten: A September 11 Story" by Nora Raleigh Baskin
A wisely managed retirement plan for cops and firemen is shaken down to shrink a deficit.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 15, 2026
In the Nashville airport, he found himself alongside a group of firemen heading to Oklahoma to help with the rescue.
From Slate ● Apr. 19, 2026
This was a leader who rolled up his sleeves and stacked sandbags alongside firemen and volunteers, when toxic red sludge from a bauxite mine engulfed a Hungarian valley and threatened the Danube shore in 2010.
From BBC ● Apr. 5, 2026
She said she was interested in meeting the firemen after seeing them on the t.v..
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 4, 2024
I rode with the firemen as the engine barreled down the street.
From Full of Beans by Jennifer L. Holm
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
