[f. late L. logograph-us accountant (a. Gr. λογογράφ-ος prose-writer, speech-writer, f. λόγο-ς word, speech, account + -γράφος -writer) + -ER1: see -GRAPHER.]
† 1. A lawyer’s clerk; an accountant. Obs.–0
1656. Blount, Glossogr., Logographers, Lawyers Clerks, they that write Pleas and Causes in the Law or Books of Accompt.
1696. in Phillips (ed. 5).
1735. Dyche & Pardon, Dict., Logographer, an Accomptant or Writer of Books of Accompts.
2. Gr. Antiq. A writer of traditional history in prose.
1846. Grote, Greece, I. iv. I. 117. The adventures which the ancient poets, epic, lyric, and tragic, and the logographers after them, connect with the name of the Argeian Iô.
1868. Gladstone, Juv. Mundi, viii. (1870), 265. Pherecydes, an Athenian logographer of the fifth century before Christ.
1875. Jowett, Plato (ed. 2), III. 42. After the manner of the early logographers, turning the Iliad into prose.
1880. Encycl. Brit., XI. 634/1. Hellanicus, the most important of the Greek logographers.
3. Gr. Antiq. A professional speech-writer.
1853. Grote, Greece, II. lxxxvii. XI. 380. Before he [Demosthenes] acquired reputation as a public adviser, he was already known as a logographer, or composer of discourses to be delivered either by speakers in the public assembly or by litigants in the Dikastery.
1881. Q. Rev., Oct., 531. The plain man, intending to go to law, addressed himself to a professional speech-writer, or ‘logographer.’
4. One who practises or is skilled in logography.
1860. in Worcester, citing Smyth.
