telecommute
verb
Did you know?
Telecommute derives from the prefix tele-, a descendant of the Greek tele, meaning "far off," and the verb "commute," which arose from the Latin commutare, meaning "to change" or "to exchange." The practice of working at home and interfacing with the office via modem, telephone, or another telecommunications device has only recently become commonplace, but the word telecommute has been around since the mid-1970s. Its earliest documented use can be found in a January 1974 article in The Economist that predicted, "As there is no logical reason why the cost of telecommunication should vary with distance, quite a lot of people by the late 1980s will telecommute daily to their London offices while living on a Pacific island if they want to."
Examples of telecommute in a Sentence
Theo Burman, MSNBC Newsweek, 18 June 2025
Creating Caregiver-friendly Work Environments Employers can make the most significant difference in keeping working mothers in their companies by offering flexible, hybrid, or telecommuting options.
—Cherie Kloss, Forbes.com, 29 Apr. 2025
The primary thrust of the measure is to shore up Bay Area Rapid Transit, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency and Caltrain, which face a financial cliff stemming from telecommuting during the COVID-19 pandemic.
—Adrian Rodriguez, The Mercury News, 25 Feb. 2025
One of the most sweeping changes made by Mr. Trump in his first week was to order federal workers back to the office full time by later next month, ending years of a flexible telecommuting policy, which in many offices dated to well before the pandemic.
—Erica L. Green, New York Times, 25 Jan. 2025
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Cite this Entry
“Telecommute.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/telecommute. Accessed 29 Oct. 2025.
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telecommute
verb
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