telephonist n someone who helps callers get the person they are calling Usage(s) Thus many a Bucharest telephonist knows that the King calls his red-haired Jewish mistress not Magda but "Bibi," that she is putting on weight. A Chinese officer yells "Yenmutan" ("smoke shell") to his telephonist. Finally the British in Moscow gave Clara a job as a telephonist and let her and her son move into the embassy. Synonym(s) telephone operator switchboard operator