Forms: 4 lawyere, 4–7 lawer(e, 4, 6–8 lawier(e, (5 laweour, laweyer(e, laweȝer, lawyour, 6 lawaier, -ayer), 6– lawyer. [f. LAW sb.1 + -YER: see also -IER.]
1. One versed in the law; a member of the legal profession, one whose business it is to conduct suits in the courts, or to advise clients, in the widest sense embracing every branch of the profession, though in colloquial use often limited to attorneys and solicitors. † High lawyer (see HIGH a. 21).
1377. Langl., P. Pl., B. VII. 59. Ȝe legistres and lawyeres Holdeth this for treuthe.
1387. Trevisa, Higden (Rolls), III. 275. Anoþer Socrates was of Grees, a greet philosofer and lawiere [Higden orator].
1413. Pilgr. Sowle (Caxton, 1483), III. iv. 53. Ye aduocates ye laweours and maynteners of wrong.
1543. Grafton, Contn. Harding, Hen. VII., 584. He had of his counsaill … Syr Charles Booth a lawer, then byshop of Herforde.
1556. Lauder, Tractate, 427. Sum Solistars, now thir dayis, Vincusis Laweris in thare cause.
1592. Greene, Upst. Courtier, E. Then the lawier was a simple man, and in the highest degree was but a bare scriuener.
1611. Bible, Matt. xxii. 35. Then one of them, which was a Lawyer, asked him a question.
1637. Nabbes, Microcosm., v. G i b. Bless me! who’s this? one of the divells she lawyers?
1688. Shadwell, Sqr. Alsatia, II. i. Wks. 1720, IV. 44. A modest learned Lawyer, of little Practice, for want of Impudence.
1712. Steele, Spect., No. 480, ¶ 7. I am now clerk to a lawier.
1765. Blackstone, Comm., I. 32. A lawyer thus educated to the bar.
1780. Cowper, Report Adjudged Case, 25. Then shifting his side, as a lawyer knows how.
1845. Polson, Law, in Encycl. Metrop., II. 819/1. Text-books, written by eminent lawyers, have … an authority in Westminster Hall.
Proverb. 1553. T. Wilson, Rhet., 20 b. The lawyer never dieth a begger. The lawyer can never want a livyng till the yearth want men.
b. In mod. versions of the N.T.: An expounder of the Mosaic law.
1526. Tindale, Luke x. 25. A Certayne Lawere [Gr. νομικός, Vulg. legisperitus; Wyclif ‘a wise man of the lawe’] stode vp and tempted hym.
† c. Sc. ‘A professor of law’ (Jam.). ? Obs.
1567. Buchanan, Reform. St. Andros (S.T.S.), 14. The College of Diuinite. Personis. Ane Principal to be Reidar in Hebrew. Ane Lawer. Ibid., 15. The lawar sal reid dayly an hore in law.
1579. Sc. Acts Jas. VI. (1814), III. 180/2. That the lawer … of befoir in the new college sall [etc.].
† 2. a. A lawgiver. b. A lawmaker. Obs.
1534. More, On the Passion, Wks. 1294/1. Theyr olde lawyer Moises.
1638. New Litany, in Bk. Sc. Pasquils (1868), 53. From cobling acts of Parliament Against the Lawers intent.
3. dial. A long bramble. Also in New Zealand, etc., applied to certain creeping plants.
1857. Reade, Course True Love, 52. We call these long briars lawyers.
1863. Kingsley, Water-Bab., 34. The lawyers tripped him up and tore his shins as if they had sharks’ teeth.
1875. Sussex Gloss., Lawyer, a long bramble full of thorns, so called because ‘when once they gets a holt an ye, ye doant easy get shut of ’em.’
1889. H. H. Romilly, Verandah in N. Guinea, 56. Tearing the vines and lawyers with their teeth.
4. Penang lawyer: a kind of walking-stick, made from the stem of a dwarf palm (Licuala acutifolia, Griffith), a native of Penang and Singapore. In England often misapplied to the Malacca cane.
App. with jocular reference to the use of the weapon in settling disputes at Penang. It has been suggested that the name may be a corruption of Malay pinang líyar, wild areca, or pinang láyor fire-dried areca. The dwarf palm has prickly stalks, so that the notion may be the same as in sense 3 and in lawyer palm.
1828. P. Cunningham, N. S. Wales (ed. 3), II. 64. With a Penang lawyer hugged close under his right arm.
1894. Conan Doyle, S. Holmes, 10. His stick, which was a Penang lawyer, weighted with lead.
5. Zool. The name given locally in America to a. the Black-necked Stilt (Himantopus nigricollis); b. the Burbot (Lota maculosa), and the Bowfin or Mudfish (Amia calva): cf. lake-lawyer (LAKE sb.4 6).
1857. S. H. Hammond, Wild Northern Scenes, 44–5 (Bartlett). ‘What on earth is that?’ said I, to the fisherman.
‘That,’ said he, ‘is a species of ling; we call it in these parts a LAWYER.’
1859. Bartlett, Dict. Amer., Lawyer … the black-necked Stilt…. On the New Jersey coast it is sometimes called lawyer on account of its ‘long bill.’
1884. Riverside Nat. Hist. (1888), III. 97. Amia calva, the bowfin,… or lawyer.
6. attrib. and Comb., as lawyer-craft, -life; lawyer-made adj.; lawyer-like adj. and adv.; lawyer-cane, -palm, -vine Austral., names for Rubus australis, Calamus australis, and Flagellaria indica, the stems of which are armed with sharp thorns.
1827. Bentham, Ration. Evid., Wks. 1843, VI. 351. The punishment of death … (so long as *lawyercraft reigns) will ever continue to be a favourite policy with the English lawyer.
1861. W. F. Collier, Hist. Eng. Lit., 481. Pictures of middle-class *lawyer-life.
1575. Brief Disc. Troub. Franckford, 208. The *lawierlike hearinge off suites that appertaine to liuinges.
1637. Documents agst. Prynne (Camden), 83. That it was not possible Mr. Burton should drawe his aunsweare to Mr. Attornyes soe lawyerlike as it was done without the helpe of some lawyer.
1876. Fox Bourne, Locke, I. i. 6. Most of the entries are evidently in the elder Locke’s own lawyer-like handwriting.
1860. Gen. P. Thompson, Audi Alt., III. cix. 27. The popular resistance in the present case is right, though the *lawyer-made law should be wrong.
1890. Lumholtz, Cannibals, 103. The stem and leaves are studded with the sharpest thorns, which continually cling to you and draw blood, hence its not very polite name of *lawyer-palm.
1892. G. Parker, Round Compass Austral., xiv. 256. Don’t touch that *lawyer-vine; it will tear you properly, and then not let you go.
Hence Lawyeress, the wife of a lawyer; a female lawyer. Lawyering vbl. sb. colloq., the following of the lawyer’s profession; similarly Lawyering ppl. a. Lawyerling, a contemptuous term for a lawyer; also, a young lawyer, a law-student; also attrib. Lawyerly a., lawyer-like. Lawyership, the condition or dignity of a lawyer. † Lawyery, lawyers as a class.
1649. Milton, Eikon., v. 45. To which … Law-tractats I referr the more Lawyerlie mooting of this point.
1676. Wycherley, Pl. Dealer, IV. 1. I have taken my leave of lawyering and pettifogging.
1716. M. Davies, Athen. Brit., II. To Rdr. 26. Our Magnificent Nobility,… our Munificent Lawyery, or our Wealthy Gentry.
1830. D. O’Connell, in Ann. Reg., Chron., 176/2. A wretched English scribe … urged on by his paltry, pitiful lawyerlings…. The English Major-general and his lawyerling staff.
1835. Greville, Mem. Geo. IV. (1875), III. xxviii. 278. Dined yesterday with the Vice-Chancellor; sixteen people … almost all lawyers and lawyeresses.
1861. Mrs. H. Wood, East Lynne, i. ‘Egad! lawyering can’t be such bad work, Carlyle.’ ‘Nor is it … But you must remember that a good fortune was left me by my uncle….’ ‘I know. The proceeds of lawyering also.’
1862. Mayhew, Prisons of London, 72. A chapel-like edifice called the ‘hall’ … where the lawyerlings ‘qualify’ for the bar.
1871. Carlyle, in Mrs. Carlyle’s Lett., II. 374. W. H., the now lawyering, parliamenteering, &c.; loud man.
1881. Masson, Carlyle, in Macm. Mag., XLV. 64. The Edinburgh … of Jeffrey in the early heyday of his lawyership and editorship of the Edinburgh Review.
1896. Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch, 11 Jan., 4/4. Miss Nellie G. Robison, the Cincinnati lawyeress.
