keyman
noun
keyman is a noun meaning “A telegraph operator” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled K-E-Y-M-A-N, and it appears about once in every 49 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of keyman is keymen.
What does keyman mean?
noun
- 1
datedA telegraph operator.
Conscious of their importance, the 324 labor delegates marched bravely in and elected by acclaim as their president a onetime Ontario telegraph keyman, Senator Gideon Decker Robertson […]
- 2
IndiaA workman who checks a railway track for faults, and who carries a keying hammer.
- 3
An employee of vital importance to a business.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Forms of keyman
- keymen plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is keyman?
Keyman appears about once in every 49 million words in written English, the 217,360th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Where does keyman come from?
From key + man.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).