Dictionary.com
definitions
  • synonyms

pitman

[pit-muh n]
See more synonyms for pitman on Thesaurus.com
noun, plural pit·men for 1, pit·mans for 2.
  1. a person who works in a pit, as in coal mining.
  2. Machinery. any of certain types of connecting rods.
Show More

Origin of pitman

First recorded in 1600–10; pit1 + -man

Pitman

[pit-muh n]
noun
  1. Sir Isaac,1813–97, English inventor of a system of shorthand.
Show More
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

Examples from the Web for pitman

Historical Examples

  • Neither Pitman nor Collier had their modern meaning of coal-miner.

    The Romance of Names

    Ernest Weekley

  • I mind fine his granddam—the merry-begot of a pitman's lass doon the water.'

  • But I permitted Mr. Pitman to continue without interruption.

    Out of the Hurly-Burly

    Charles Heber Clark

  • Marrow, a mate, a fellow-workman, a pitman who works in a shift with another.

    The Slang Dictionary

    John Camden Hotten

  • She was 92 reading "Pitman's Phonetic Journal," and eating bread and treacle.

British Dictionary definitions for pitman

pitman

noun plural -men
  1. mainly Scot and Northern English a person who works down a mine, esp a coal miner
Show More

Pitman

noun
  1. Sir Isaac. 1813–97, English inventor of a system of phonetic shorthand (1837)
Show More
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012