fireman

American  

[fahyuhr-muhn] / ˈfaɪər mən /

noun

• firemen
  plural

1. a person employed to extinguish or prevent fires; firefighter.

2. a person employed to tend fires; stoker.

3. Railroads.

   1. a person employed to fire and lubricate a steam locomotive.

   2. a person employed to assist the engineer of a diesel or electric locomotive.

4. U.S. Navy. an enlisted person assigned to the care and operation of a ship's machinery.

5. British Mining. fire boss.

6. Baseball. relief pitcher.

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fireman British  

/ ˈfaɪəmən /

noun

1. Gender-neutral form: firefighter.  a man who fights fires, usually a public employee or trained volunteer

2. 1. (on steam locomotives) the man who stokes the fire and controls the injectors feeding water to the boiler

   2. (on diesel and electric locomotives) the driver's assistant

3. a man who tends furnaces; stoker

4. US equivalent: fire boss.  Also called: deputy.  a mine official responsible for safety precautions

5. navy a junior rating who works on marine engineering equipment

6. informal any employee who is dispatched to deal with trouble at short notice

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Gender

See -man.

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• firemen
  plural

Etymology

Origin of fireman

1620–30 for sense “gunner”; fire + -man

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

fireman firemen

"So it is!" chimed in an off-duty fireman nearby.

From Barron's ● Jul. 31, 2026

"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

At lunchtime on January 15, fireman George Layhe had decided not to join the game and instead had gone up to the sleeping room on the third floor to take a short nap.

From "1919 The Year That Changed America" by Martin W. Sandler

In northern Portugal, in Valpacos, nearly 800 firemen were battling a forest fire that was spreading, the civil protection service said.

From Barron's ● Jul. 30, 2026

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

"Most of the firemen know the area so well and they know how to manage it."

From BBC ● Apr. 11, 2025

In the days after, I watched the ridiculous pageantry of flags, the machismo of firemen, the overwrought slogans.

From "Between the World and Me" by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Related Words

• firefighter