pointsman

American  

[points-muhn] / ˈpɔɪnts mən /

noun

British.

• pointsmen
  plural

1. a railway switchman.

2. a police officer who directs traffic, as at an intersection.

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pointsman British  

/ ˈpɔɪntsˌmæn, -mən /

noun

1. US and Canadian equivalent: switchman. a person who operates railway points

2. a policeman or traffic warden on point duty

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• pointsmen
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of pointsman

First recorded in 1840–50; point + -s ³ + man

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

pointsman pointsmen

Pompeo had told Sergei Lavrov, his Russian counterpart, in a separate meeting in Helsinki that Russia’s pointsman for the Ukraine, Vladislav Surkov, needed to engage constructively with U.S. envoy Kurt Volker.

From Washington Post ● Jul. 20, 2018

The pointsman who presides over this junction is the librarian.

From In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays by Augustine Birrell

The pointsman aloft in the signal-box made the motions of drawing, with some difficulty, hogsheads of beer. 

From Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices by Charles Dickens

A pointsman will be expected to notice all signals and to obey them.

From Mr. Punch's Railway Book by Sir John Alexander Hammerton

I were pointsman on the South Eastern, with an only child—a girl As got switched to a houtside porter, though fit to 'ave married a       pearl.

From Successful Recitations by Alfred H. (Alfred Henry) Miles

That railway porters, pointsmen, guards, firemen, and drivers are, as Mr. Joynes well urges, often badly paid, and nearly always overworked, is true, but making the railways State property would not necessarily improve this.

From Some Objections To Socialism From "The Atheistic Platform", Twelve Lectures by Charles Bradlaugh

Then, at all the junctions, sidings, and crossings, pointsmen are stationed, with definite instructions as to the duties to be performed by them. 

From Lives of the Engineers The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson by Samuel Smiles

Hast thou ne'er seen rough pointsmen spy Some simple English phrase—"With care" Or "This side uppermost"—and cry Like children?

From Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 by Charles Dudley Warner

Some people are so like eternal pointsmen lying in wait by the line, to shunt one's train of thought from one rail to another.

From The Home and the World by Rabindranath Tagore

Only on these conditions can a railway manager be sure that his pointsmen are on the job.

From The French Revolution - Volume 1 by John Durand

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