[f. as prec. + -IST. Cf. F. télégraphiste.] A person employed, or skilled, in working a telegraph; a telegraph-operator.
1848. Sharpe’s Lond. Mag., VI. March, 44/2. Up goes the paper with a winch, and it has now reached the hands of the telegraphist.
1854. Lardner’s Museum Sci. & Art, IV. 60. Different telegraphists have very different powers as to celerity.
c. 1865. J. Wylde, in Circ. Sc., I. 261/1. No one suddenly became an expert telegraphist.
1876. Preece & Sivewright, Telegraphy, 113. The amount of work … will not justify the employment of a trained telegraphist.
1879. [see TELEGRAPH clerk].
1908. Daily Chron., 3 June, 1/4. A wireless telegraphist had a terrifying experience during a terrific thunderstorm…, where the wireless station was struck by lightning.
b. Telegraphist’s cramp: a paralytic affection of the muscles of the fore-arm, to which telegraph-operators are liable: cf. CRAMP sb.1
1880. Glasgow Med. Jrnl., XIII. 511. Telegraphists’ Cramp…. The feeling of cramp occurs after a shorter period of service, in officials of a nervous and excitable nature, and their general health suffers very soon.
1899. Allbutt’s Syst. Med., VI. 539. The so-called ‘Professional hyperkineses’ (writer’s cramp, histrionic spasm, pianist’s cramp, telegraphist’s cramp, &c.) admit of a similar explanation.
1908. Daily Chron., 26 Nov., 6/2. The supplementary report … recommended that telegraphists’ cramp should be added to the compensation list.
