dispatcher

UK/ˈdɪs.pætʃ.ə(ɹ)/

nounB2+Common in everyday speech and writing · #6,924 of 15,258leans spoken

Other forms: dispatchers

A dispatcher is the person who takes the call and sends the help. The ambulance dispatcher, a taxi dispatcher, the dispatcher stayed on the line.

In emergency services the job is triage under pressure: deciding what is going on from a frightened caller and choosing what to send. A dispatcher also talks the caller through first aid, which has saved a great many lives before anybody arrived.

Definitions of dispatcher

1noundispatcherThe person who takes the call and sends the help.B2+
“The dispatcher sent three fire engines to the burning warehouse within a minute of the call.”

dispatcher is a worker.

Where it comes from

Latin
-pedicāre — to entrap, shackle
Vulgar Latin
*pactāre — to fasten"
Italian
dispacciare
Spanish
despachar
English
dispatch
English, today
dispatcher

From dispatch + -er. dispatch Spanish despachar and/or Italian dispacciare. Further etymology is uncertain. For first element des-, see dis-. Second element probably from either Vulgar Latin pactāre (“to fasten"”), pactiare or Latin -pedicāre (“to entrap, shackle”), from pedica, from pēs. Ultimately related to impeach through shared Latin root. The first known use in writing (in the past tense, spelled as dispached) is by Bishop Cuthbert Tunstall in 1517. This would be unusually early for a borrowing from a Romance language other than French, but Tunstall had studied in Italy and was Commissioner to Spain, so this word may have been borrowed through diplomatic circles. The alternative spelling despatch was introduced in Samuel Johnson's dictionary, probably by accident. Compare typologically deliver (for the meaning to bring or transport) (< dē- + līberō).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Emergency & Rescue

Practise this word

dispatcher in the wild

A dispatcher may announce the call details to field units over a two-way radio.
Computer-aided dispatch
The warrant is issued by the train dispatcher and delivered to the train crew via radio.
Track Warrant Control
On this panel, the dispatcher can keep track of trains' locations across the territory that the dispatcher controls.
Centralized traffic control
The system used a set of rules when direct communication between train dispatchers and trains was limited or non-existent.
Train order operation
Telephone operators take calls from clients, then either enter the client's information into a computer or write it down and give it to a dispatcher.
Dispatch (logistics)

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

the despachar family

dispatch dispatcher

dispatcher — used about once every 2,254 pages · #6,924 · point at the bar for the others

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