Keyman

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A telegraph operator. dated

    "Conscious of their importance, the 324 labor delegates marched bravely in and elected by acclaim as their president a onetime Ontario telegraph keyman, Senator Gideon Decker Robertson […]"

  2. 2
    A workman who checks a railway track for faults, and who carries a keying hammer. India
  3. 3
    An employee of vital importance to a business.

    "A corporation may feel the need for life insurance on one of its keymen under a variety of circumstances."

Example

More examples

"Conscious of their importance, the 324 labor delegates marched bravely in and elected by acclaim as their president a onetime Ontario telegraph keyman, Senator Gideon Decker Robertson […]"

Etymology

From key + man.

Related phrases

keyman insurancekeying hammer

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.