Etymology

signalman

sig·nal·man
S1I1G2N1A1L1M3A1N1

Today it means: Somebody employed to operate the signals and points of a railway. Full definition →

Middle English man ← Old English mann ← Proto-West Germanic *mann
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The story

  1. Englishsignal
  2. Proto-Indo-European*mon-
  3. Proto-Germanic*mann-
  4. Proto-West Germanic*mann
  5. Old Englishmann
  6. Middle Englishman
  7. English todaysignalman

From signal + -man.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.