# policeman

Pronunciation: say "puh-LEES-muhn" /pəˈliːsmən/

## Noun

1. A member of a police force, especially a male officer.
   - Simple: A member of a police force, usually a man.
   - _The policeman on the corner gave us directions to the train station._
   - _Several policemen were called in to break up the brawl._
2. In ice hockey, a player whose job is to deter and answer aggressive play by the opposing team, protecting teammates through physical confrontation.
   - Simple: In ice hockey, a tough player who protects teammates by fighting rough opponents.
   - _The coach sent out his policeman to answer the other team's late hit._
   - _As a policeman, he spent more time in the penalty box than near the goal._
3. A glass rod capped at one end with rubber, used in gravimetric analysis to dislodge solid residue from glassware.
   - Simple: A glass rod tipped with rubber, used in a lab to scrape solids loose when weighing them carefully.
   - _The technician scraped the precipitate free with a policeman before filtering it._
   - _A rubber-tipped policeman lets you recover every trace of solid clinging to the flask._
4. Any of the skipper butterflies belonging to the genus Coeliades.
   - Simple: A kind of butterfly that belongs to the group scientists call Coeliades.
   - _The collector identified the specimen as a policeman by its broad, sturdy wings._
   - _Policemen are strong, rapid fliers, darting between flowering shrubs faster than most butterflies._

## Origin

Formed from "police" combined with the suffix "-man".

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/policeman (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).