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• pitman
  pitman

  noun

  a person who works in a pit, as in coal mining.
• Pitman
  Pitman

  noun

  Sir Isaac, 1813–97, English inventor of a system of shorthand.

pitman

¹ American  

[pit-muhn] / ˈpɪt mən /

noun

plural

pitmen, pitmans

1. a person who works in a pit, as in coal mining.

2. Machinery. any of certain types of connecting rods.

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Pitman ² American  

[pit-muhn] / ˈpɪt mən /

noun

1. Sir Isaac, 1813–97, English inventor of a system of shorthand.

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Pitman ¹ British  

/ ˈpɪtmən /

noun

1. Sir Isaac. 1813–97, English inventor of a system of phonetic shorthand (1837)

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pitman ² British  

/ ˈpɪtmən /

noun

1. a person who works down a mine, esp a coal miner

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Etymology

Origin of pitman

First recorded in 1600–10; pit ¹ + -man

Example Sentences

Towering over a high street in a former mining heartland, a statue of a pitman reminds Cornwall of its industrial past.

From BBC • Apr. 9, 2023

I grab a seat at the counter to watch the pitman, John Talley, at work, mincing and slicing a hot, black-crusted pork shoulder.

From Washington Post • Aug. 28, 2016

Besides the wood itself, there’s the cost of paying a pitman to stay up all night to feed the fire, keep it steady — and make sure it doesn’t burn the place down.

From Washington Post • Sep. 20, 2015

Paintings of a colliery and of a miners' pub, by the pitman painter Norman Cornish, hang on the walls.

From The Guardian • May 18, 2013

This is put on with a brush, and may be done very evenly and speedily by a machine in which the brush is reciprocated over the type by hand-wheel, crank, and pitman.

From Scientific American Supplement, No. 488, May 9, 1885 by Various