typewriter

Noun

typewriter (plural typewriters)

1. A device, at least partially mechanical, used to print text by pressing keys that cause type to be impressed through an inked ribbon onto paper.
2. (archaic) One who uses a typewriter; a typist.
   • So many mongrel words, like typist and typewritist, have been introduced, we propose a fixed designation of—typewriter, to mean the person who writes, and writing machine, the device.1894, Bates Torrey, “Lesson XIII”, in Practical Typewriting: by the All‐Finger Method, Which Leads to Operation by Touch, 3rd edition, New York: Fowler & Wells Co., (59.) Letter Writing, page 26
   • He had taken the wife to his raw new palace in San Diego, where she and her people occupied a wing of great price, and Cheyne, in a veranda-room, between a secretary and a typewriter, who was also a telegraphist, toiled along wearily from day to day.1896 November – 1897 May, Rudyard Kipling, “Captains Courageous”, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Company, published 1897, →OCLC

   Synonyms:

   typist

3. (US, dated, slang) A machine gun or submachine gun (from the noise it makes when firing).
   • The battle had opened in earnest. From the wooded ridge came in reply the clacking of "typewriters,” and bullets whined over our heads.1973, Edgar B. Jackson, Fall Out to the Right of the Road!, page 321
   • It was like sinking to sleep in a soft, dry bed with a big drink of brandy in you after you're dog-tired from a tour of duty on the firing-step, or slipping into a warm bath when you're lousy-dirty and chilled to the bone from crawling through mud and filth and dodging flares and 'typewriter'...1996, Stefan Dziemianowicz, Virtuous vampires, page 250
4. A prank in which fingers are jabbed roughly onto someone's chest followed by striking them over the ear in imitation of using an old-fashioned typewriter.