Meaning & use
clerical aide
Last updated
Meaning
nouncountable
A person whose job is to help with routine office work such as filing, typing, and answering phones.
Grammar: Countable: say 'a clerical aide' or 'clerical aides'.
Patterns
- work as a clerical aide
- a clerical aide to someone
She started as a clerical aide in the personnel department.
The hospital hired two clerical aides to handle patient records.
As a clerical aide, his main tasks were filing and photocopying.
Word forms
| plural | clerical aides |
|---|
Common combinations
- work as a clerical aide
- He worked as a clerical aide for three years before his promotion.
- hire a clerical aide
- The manager decided to hire a clerical aide to reduce the paperwork.
- clerical aide position
- She applied for a clerical aide position at the city council.
Synonyms and how they differ
- office assistant
- This is the everyday term; 'clerical aide' sounds more formal and often appears in official job titles.
- administrative assistant
- This usually suggests more responsibility, such as managing schedules and correspondence, while a clerical aide does more routine tasks.
Commonly confused: clerical aide or aide?
clerical aide vs aide
'Aide' alone means a helper or assistant, often in politics or the military; 'clerical aide' specifies that the work is office-based.
Practice
Which sentence uses 'clerical aide' correctly?
Choose one answer.
A clerical aide is a countable person noun, so it needs 'a' before it. Option 2 misses the article, option 3 needs 'as a' before the job title, and option 4 uses the wrong preposition; we say 'in the finance office', not 'of'.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “clerical aide”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.