Etymology

switchman

S1W4I1T1C3H4M3A1N1

Today it means: A person who operates railway switches that route trains onto rail tracks. Full definition →

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

  1. Middle Dutchswijchbor.?
  2. Englishswitch
  3. Proto-Indo-European*mon-
  4. Proto-Germanic*mann-
  5. Proto-West Germanic*mann
  6. Old Englishmann
  7. Middle Englishman
  8. English todayswitchman

From switch + -man.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.