(stress even or variable), sb. and a. [f. LACK v.1 + LATIN sb.] † A. sb. One who knows little or no Latin; chiefly in Sir John Lack-latin, a name for an ignorant priest. Obs. B. adj. Ignorant of Latin; unlearned.
c. 1534. Sir F. Bygod, Treat. conc. impropriations, C vj. Is it nat great pitye to se a man to have thre or foure benefyces … whiche he neuer cometh at, but setteth in euery one of them a syr John lacke laten, that can scarce rede his porteus.
1552. Latimer, Serm. St. Andrew’s Day (1584), 236. [The patron] will … hyer a Syt Iohn Lacke Latin, whiche shall say seruice.
1608. J. Day, Law Trickes, I. i. (1881), 11. Your selfe and such lack-Latin Aduocates Infect the heart.
1614. Jackson, Creed, III. iii. § 5. We are bound to believe the Church’s decisions read or explicated unto us (by the pope’s messenger though a Sir John Lack-latin).
1649. G. Daniel, Trinarch., Rich. II., 343. ’Tis but in Ayre, as on the Earth, one Cause; Wee haue our Lack-Latins, and They, their Dawes.
1832. J. Hodgson, in J. Raine, Mem. (1858), II. 257. That sad lack-Latin prelate Lewis Beaumont.
