typist
Americannoun
noun
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.
Fiction, meanwhile, features The Other Typist, a jazz-age thriller by debut novelist Suzanne Rindell, The Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner, which explores art and radicalism in 1970s New York, and The Trade Secret by Robert Newman.
From The Guardian • Jun. 8, 2013
British publication of The Other Typist has been timed to exploit Gatsby mania, and Odalie is certainly a wily gatecrasher of a gilded milieu.
From The Guardian • Jun. 7, 2013
At 675 Bar you can also sip an Algerian Typist, a Beggarman Thief or a Mr. Rufus.
From New York Times • Jun. 10, 2010
The day before New Year's, Typist Bennick asked to be excused from her job; she had a backache, suspected she had a cold.
From Time Magazine Archive
Typist and stenographer, or secretary or translator in French and German and Rumanian" she was numbering off the occupations on her fingers as she listed them "or even governess, if there isn't anything else.
From Those Who Smiled And Eleven Other Stories by Gibbon, Perceval
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.
