Obs. A chaplain who eats at a patron’s table; a domestic chaplain. contemptuous.
1589. Hay any Work, 37. I doe disdaine to deale with a contemptible trencher chaplaine.
1610. Boys, Expos. Domin. Ep., etc., Wks. (1630), 511. It is the fashion of parasites and trencher-Chaplaines to flatter, or at the least humour great men at their table.
1676. Marvell, Mr. Smirke, Wks. (Grosart), IV. 15. It savors of the liquorishness of a trencher-chaplain, little concerned in the ‘curâ animarum.’
