motorman
Americannoun
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motormen
plural
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a person who operates or drives an electrically operated vehicle, as a streetcar or subway train.
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a person who operates a motor.
noun
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the driver of an electric train
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the operator of a motor
Gender
See -man.
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of motorman
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:
A transit porter and motorman with the New York City subway in the 1980s, Mr. Naiden was active in a tiny communist cell within the union, endorsing free fares and encouraging turnstile hopping.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 10, 2026
The conductor and motorman, not yet aboard, ran to catch the car, but its fender knocked Rene down, and she was seriously injured.
From Seattle Times ● Jan. 26, 2023
Her husband Milton Deoth has been a sailor for over two decades and works as a motorman on MT Heroic Idun.
From BBC ● Dec. 22, 2022
After displaying an aptitude for complex math, he scaled the ranks from floorhand to motorman to driller to toolpusher.
From The Guardian ● Oct. 20, 2020
He stood on the front platform, back of the motorman.
From "Native Son" by Richard Wright
Garth said that teenage friends of his would sometimes cajole motormen into letting them drive the streetcars into town from Glen Echo late at night.
From Washington Post ● Feb. 6, 2021
Timed signals not only indicate to motormen when they are speeding but automatically trip the brakes to stop a train that passes a red light without permission.
From New York Times ● Nov. 1, 2018
She greeted the train operator — they are no longer known as motormen — in the first car before taking her place in the booth in the sixth, in the middle of the train.
From New York Times ● May 25, 2013
At week's end some discouraged motormen, threatened with dismissal, were shuffling sadly back to work.
From Time Magazine Archive
Thanks to the help of Aunt Mandy and Uncle Billy she had been able to furnish dinners to the motormen and conductors all during the snows of winter and the rains of spring.
From The Comings of Cousin Ann by Sampson, Emma Speed
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.
