typewriter

Etymology

It is formed from English type + writer,^{[2][3][4][5][6]} in American English.^[6] Type is from Latin typus (“figure, image, form, kind”), from Ancient Greek τύπος (túpos, “a blow, impression, mark”), from τύπτω (túptō, “to strike, beat”).^[7][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

A machine for writing with types for the letters, figures and punctuation marks, struck one at a time onto paper: 1868, in the U.S. patent of C. L. Sholes and others.^[2][5][4]

Semantic evolution

From 1884 typewriter was also the person who used the machine, the sense that typist took over;^[2][4][5] Merriam-Webster takes this use as formed from typewrite with -er.^[4] The verb typewrite is recorded from 1887.^[2][5] Slang uses followed: in American card-playing a typewriter was a queen (1904);^[8] during the First World War it became a name for a machine gun or submachine gun, from its tapping noise.^[8][2] In rhyming slang it stood for a fighter.^[8] Etymonline records office-piano as a slang name for the machine by 1942,^[5] and quotes the poet Charles Olson (1950) on how the typewriter let a poet mark "the breath, the pauses" of his verse.^[5] In printing the word also names a typeface that looks like typewritten text.^[9][4]

Timeline

• 1868 – a writing machine with types for the letters.^[2][5][4]
• 1884 – a typist.^[2]
• 1904 – in American slang, the queen in cards.^[8]
• 1915 – slang, a machine gun.^[2] Green's Dictionary of Slang first records it in 1916, in Robert Service.^[8]
• 1932 – rhyming slang, a fighter.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. A machine with a keyboard for writing in characters like printed ones, each key making a type strike the paper through an inked ribbon: He wrote all his novels on an old portable typewriter.^[9][4][2][3]
2. (printing) A typeface that looks like typewritten text.^[9][4]
3. A typist.^[4][2]
4. (slang) A machine gun.^[2][8]

Related words

• type
• typewrite
• typist
• write

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
7. ^ Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
8. ^ a b c d e f g Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
9. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins