policeman

police +‎ -man

• IPA^(key): /pəˈliːsmən/

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• Hyphenation: po‧lice‧man

policeman (plural policemen)

1. A male police officer, sometimes used for any police officer regardless of gender.
   • 1941, George Orwell, The Lion and the Unicorn, Pt. I:

     The policeman who arrests the "Red" does not understand the theories the "Red" is preaching; if he did, his own position as bodyguard of the monied class might seem less pleasant to him.

   • 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 19, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC:

     Meanwhile Nanny Broome was recovering from her initial panic and seemed anxious to make up for any kudos she might have lost, by exerting her personality to the utmost. She took the policeman's helmet and placed it on a chair, and unfolded his tunic to shake it and fold it up again for him.

2. (chemistry) A glass rod capped at one end with rubber, used in a chemistry laboratory for gravimetric analysis.
3. (entomology) Any skipper of the genus Coeliades.
4. (ice hockey) Synonym of enforcer
   • 2002, P. J. Harari, Dave Ominsky, Ice Hockey Made Simple: A Spectator's Guide, page 26:

     A team may have a policeman or enforcer.

• (member of a police force): See Thesaurus:police officer
• (glass rod with rubber cap): rubber policeman

• → French: policeman
• → Maori: pirihimana
• → Welsh: plismon

• constable

• melanopic

policeman m (plural policemans)

1. policeman (in Anglophone countries)
   • 1968, Serge Gainsbourg (lyrics and music), “Bonnie and Clyde”, in Initials B.B., performed by Serge Gainsbourg ft. Brigitte Bardot:

     Chaque fois qu’un policeman se fait buter […]

     Every time a policeman gets done in […]

• “policeman”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.