typist
Americannoun
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of typist
1835–45 for earlier sense “typesetter”; 1880–85 for current sense; type + -ist
Explanation
If you work as a typist in an office, you'll be typing up notes, reports, emails, or manuscripts. Nowadays, a typist typically uses a computer keyboard. Once upon a time, typists did all their typing on typewriters, but that's extremely unusual in today's era of computers and printers. Starting around 1884, a typist was "a person who operates a typewriter," although earlier the word meant "compositer," or the person who arranges type in a printing press. Typist comes from type, which derives from the Greek root typos, "dent, impression, or mark."
Vocabulary lists containing typist
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:
It’s for any typist in your life, especially millennials nostalgic for the see-through gadgets.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 23, 2025
But she found a job as a typist at Radio Tokyo, which enlisted POWs in its propaganda division and recruited her in late 1943 as a disc jockey.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 21, 2025
When Mr Taylor joined the BBC newsroom in Belfast he was the only reporter, alongside a news editor and a typist.
From BBC ● Jan. 24, 2024
“I remember my days as a waiter, cleaner, typist, even my time on the unemployment line,” Ms. Streep said in a statement.
From New York Times ● Aug. 2, 2023
I could be a waitress or a typist.
From "The Bell Jar" by Sylvia Plath
But jobs that entailed doing more routine cognitive work such as typists and back-office bookkeepers—roles that had once promised a solid path to the middle class—were no longer so vital.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 24, 2026
This kept an entire pool of court reporters, secretaries, and typists endlessly busy for the duration of the nearly yearlong proceedings.
From Slate ● Mar. 16, 2024
By recording the sounds of someone typing on a keyboard while using Zoom, researchers Joshua Harrison, Ehsan Toreini and Maryam Mehrnezhad said they discovered a way to reveal what the typists write.
From Washington Times ● Aug. 7, 2023
“Snobbery has gone out of fashion, and in our shops you will find duchesses jostling with typists to buy the same dress,” Quant once said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 13, 2023
He could never really remember the names of his clerks and typists.
From "A Confederacy of Dunces" by John Kennedy Toole
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.
