Etymologically
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typewriter

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Pronunciation

  • UK: /ˈtaɪpˌraɪtə(r)/[1]
  • US: /ˈtaɪpˌraɪt̬ɚ/[1]

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]

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