[med.L., = ‘one who holds the place (of another),’ a LIEUTENANT: L. locum, accus. of locus place; tenens, pr. pple. of tenēre to hold.] One who holds office temporarily in place of the person to whom the office belongs, or who undertakes another’s professional duties during his absence; a deputy, substitute.
In Great Britain now chiefly applied to the deputy of a medical man or of a clergyman.
[1463. Rolls of Parlt., V. 499/1. & dicti Locumtenentis mandato, declarabat, qualiter idem Locumtenens … Parliamentum voluit prorogare.]
1641. ‘Smectymnuus,’ Answ., v. (1653), 22. Leaving Titus as his Locum teneis.
1683. in Strype, Stowe’s Surv. Lond. (1720), II. V. xviii. 391/2. The Lord Maiors Locumtenens.
1755. Carte, Hist. Eng., IV. 410. They ordered him to appoint a locum tenens and upon his declining to do so, they required … the three eldest aldermen, one after another, to assume the post.
1764. Foote, Mayor of G., II. Wks. 1799, I. 187. D’ye mean … Master Jeremy’s deputy?… Ay, ay, his locum tenens.
1838. Lytton, Alice, III. ii. The old driveller will be my locum tenens, till years and renown enable me to become his successor.
1883. S. C. Hall, Retrospect, I. 326. He not being on the spot, a locum tenens became a necessity.
transf. 1832. G. Downes, Lett. Cont. Countries, I. 461. A house wherein Petrarch was born, or perhaps its locum-tenens.
attrib. 1887. Pall Mall Gaz., 16 Nov., 7/1. Dr. Schrader, the locum tenens body physician of his Imperial and Royal Highness. Ibid. (1889), 13 Nov., 3/1. Young medical men fresh from the schools who are taking locum tenens work.
