Tallyman
noun, slang
noun, slang ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 A person who keeps a tally of something.
"Uncoupling a train into cuts in the reception sidings - as a shunter wields his pole, the tallyman reads off details of the train to the Traffic Office through his portable radio transmitter."
- 2 one who sells goods on the installment plan wordnet
- 3 A man who conducts the tally trade.
- 4 a male tally clerk wordnet
- 5 A man who cohabits (with someone) outside of marriage. archaic, informal, regional
"The term tally-man and tally-woman, indicating a man and woman living together without marriage, are used in mining districts, where such unions are far from uncommon."
Show 1 more definition
- 6 A counting agent; typically one who is a man. Ireland
Synonyms
All synonymsExample
More examples"Uncoupling a train into cuts in the reception sidings - as a shunter wields his pole, the tallyman reads off details of the train to the Traffic Office through his portable radio transmitter."
Etymology
From tally + -man.
Related phrases
More for "tallyman"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.