Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A firefighter.
  • noun A man who tends fires; a stoker.
  • noun An enlisted man in the US Navy or Coast Guard engaged in the operation of engineering machinery.
  • noun Baseball A relief pitcher.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun One of an organized company, in a city or town, whose business it is to extinguish or prevent conflagrations; a member of a fire-company.
  • noun One of the crew of a gun in the United States navy whose duty it is to assist in extinguishing fire, especially during a battle.
  • noun A man employed in tending fires, as of a steam-engine; a stoker.
  • noun In coal-mining, a person charged with the special duty of examining every morning the working-places and roads of a pit to ascertain if fire-damp is present.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A man whose business is to extinguish fires in towns; a member of a fire company.
  • noun A man who tends the fires, as of a steam engine; a stocker.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun firefighting Someone (implied male) who is skilled in the work of fighting fire.
  • noun rail transport A man who keeps the fire going underneath a steam boiler (originally, shoveling coal by hand), particularly on a railroad locomotive.
  • noun rail transport By extension of the above, an assistant on any locomotive, whether steam-powered or not.
  • noun baseball A relief pitcher.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun play in which children pretend to put out a fire
  • noun a laborer who tends fires (as on a coal-fired train or steamship)
  • noun a pitcher who does not start the game
  • noun a member of a fire department who tries to extinguish fires

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

fire +‎ -man

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Examples

  • Here Bradbury evoked in less than 10 pages the same emotions as “The Fireman” did at considerably longer length, with the boy Tom serving much the same role as the title fireman of the more famous story.

    Archive 2008-04-01 adamosf 2008

  • Here Bradbury evoked in less than 10 pages the same emotions as “The Fireman” did at considerably longer length, with the boy Tom serving much the same role as the title fireman of the more famous story.

    S is for Space adamosf 2008

  • The other fireman is already a distinguished one with a Nobel Peace Prize, and all along the way you don't know if he's the fireman or the pyromaniac.

    In a Ruined Country 2005

  • The other fireman is already a distinguished one with a Nobel Peace Prize, and all along the way you don't know if he's the fireman or the pyromaniac.

    In a Ruined Country 2005

  • He put on the gloves with a fireman from the Berthe in a scheduled four-round bout at the Folies Bergères, and was knocked out in the second round.

    THE PROUD GOAT OFALOYSIUS PANKBURN 2010

  • I had to carry her in fireman style, kicking and screaming everyday for a month, she hated it so much.

    What do we teach our kids? | Johnny B. Truant 2010

  • In the world where this story takes place, a fireman is not someone who stops fires, but someone who burns books.

    Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury and Sci-Fi Experience Wrap-Up 2008

  • He put on the gloves with a fireman from the Berthe in a scheduled four-round bout at the Folies Bergères, and was knocked out in the second round.

    The Proud Goat of Aloysius Pankburn 1912

  • He put on the gloves with a fireman from the Berthe in a scheduled four-round bout at the Folies Bergère, and was knocked out in the second round.

    The Proud Goat of Aloysius Pankburn 1911

  • The fireman is playing the hose on me from the engine.

    Holding Her Down 1907

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