Also 4–7 -sour, 5 accessour. [a. OF. assessour (mod. assesseur), cogn. with Pr. assessor, Sp. asesor, It. assessore:—L. assessōr-em (in cl. L.) an assistant-judge, (in late L.) one who assesses taxes, n. of agent f. assidēre: see ASSESS v. and -OR.]
1. One who sits beside; hence, one who shares another’s position, rank or dignity.
1667. Milton, P. L., VI. 670. Whence to his Son, Th’ Assessor of his Throne, he thus began.
1701. W. Wotton, Hist. Rome (Commod.), i. 186. Gone up to Heaven, to be a Companion and an Assessor with the Gods.
1842. De Quincey, Philos. Herodot., Wks. IX. 211. He justifies his majestic station as a brotherly assessor on the same throne with Homer.
2. One who sits as assistant or adviser to a judge or magistrate; esp. a skilled assistant competent to advise on technical points of law, commercial usage, navigation, etc. (The earliest sense in Eng.)
c. 1380. Wyclif, Wks. (1880), 33. Newe religious assessours of þes vnkunnynge worldely prelatis.
1413. Lydgate, Pylgr. Sowle, I. xi. 8. Come to oure jugementes, to here and to see as assessours, that ryght be performed.
1496. Dives & Paup. (W. de W.), V. xviii. 220/2. The Juge, the aduocate, the accessour.
1636. Featly, Clavis Myst., ix. 113. How religious then ought Judges to be, who are Almighty God’s assessours.
1756. Nugent, Gr. Tour, I. 102. He has his assessors who sit with him, when there are any complaints to be heard.
1810. Bentham, Packing (1821), 6. The body of unlearned assessors, termed Jurors or Jurymen.
1883. Law Times, 20 Oct., 409/1. The court on the trial of a patent case may call in the aid of a specially qualified assessor.
3. a. One who assesses taxes. b. One who officially estimates the value of property or income for purposes of taxation.
1611. Cotgr., Tauxeur, a rater, taxer, assessor.
a. 1618. Raleigh, Arts of Empire, xix. (1658), 50 (T.). The Assessors of Taxes may be elected of the meaner sort of the people.
1835. Reeve, De Tocqueville’s Democr. Amer., I. v. 119. In New England the assessor fixes the rate of taxes.
1852. McCulloch, Taxation, i. iv. 37. The assessors having no means of learning whether individuals have 130l., 140l., or 150l. a year.
4. transf. or fig. in prec. senses.
1625. Hart, Anat. Ur., I. ii. 21. Other accidents … are called … assessors or assistants to the disease.
1722. Wollaston, Relig. Nat., ix. 173. Bodily inclinations and passions [where reason] allows them to be as it were assessors to it upon the throne, are of admirable use in life.
1841. De Quincey, Homer, Wks. VI. 350. Pisistratus summoned seventy men of letters … as critical assessors upon these poems.
