lawyer
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈlɔːjə(ɹ)/
ipa: /ˈlɔɪ.ə(ɹ)/
ipa: /ˈlɔɪ.ɚ/
ipa: /ˈlɔ.jɚ/
note: Dublin
ipa: /ˈlɔɪ.əɹ/
note: Dublin
ipa: /ˈlɔɪ.ɐ/
note: Indic
ipa: /ˈlɔjə(ɾ)/
note: father-bother merger
ipa: /ˈlɑjə(ɾ)/
rhymes: -ɔɪ.ə(ɹ)
rhymes: -ɔː.jə(ɹ)
rhymes: -ɔɪə(ɹ)
Forms: form: lawyers
form: lawer
Etymology: From Middle English lawiere, lawier, lawer, equivalent to law + -yer.
Senses: glosses: A professional person with a graduate law degree that qualifies for legal work (such as Juris Doctor)
examples: text: His forefathers had been, as a rule, professional men—physicians and lawyers; his grandfather died under the walls of Chapultepec Castle while twisting a tourniquet for a cursing dragoon; an uncle remained indefinitely at Malvern Hill;[…].
ref: 1907 August, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, chapter II, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC:
text: Mr. Wells was a pleasant man of middle-age, with keen eyes, and the typical lawyer’s mouth.
ref: 1920, Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, London: Pan Books, published 1954, page 59:
text: A lawyer's time and advice are his stock in trade. - aphorism often credited to Abraham Lincoln, but without attestation
glosses: A professional person qualified (as by a law degree or bar exam) and authorized to practice law as an attorney-at-law, solicitor, advocate, barrister or equivalent, i.e. represent parties in lawsuits or trials and give legal advice.
glosses: A legal layman who argues points of law.
glosses: The burbot.
glosses: The stem of a bramble.
examples: text: The species of Eugnomus are very partial to the lawyer (Rubus australis ) when in bloom.
ref: 1881 April, George M. Thomson, “On the Fertilization of New Zealand Flowering Plants”, in Transactions and Proceedings of the New Zealand Institute, volume 13, page 250:
text: In the lawyer (Rubus australis) a considerable differentiation has taken place. All the alllies of this plant (such as the true roses, brambles, rasps, &c.), exhibit a strong development of epidermal structures in the form of hooks, spines, or hairs, but in none are these structures so perfect as in our lawyer.
ref: 1885, New Zealand Journal of Science - Volume 2, page 417:
text: A plant that is excessively troublesome in the localities where the native vegetation has been least disturbed is the “lawyer” (Rubus australis).
ref: 1915, John Henderson, P. Marshall, Percy Gates Morgan, The Geology and Mineral Resources of the Reefton Subdivision, Westport and North Westland Division, page 6:
glosses: Any of various plants that have hooked thorns.
A relative of the raspberry found in Australia and New Zealand, Rubus australis
examples: text: Besides the bags and nets common throughout the continent, these tribes have water-bags, which they make of closely-plaited “lawyer” (Calamus Australis), and also of palm-leaf sewn with the sinews of animals.
ref: 1886, Edward Micklethwaite Curr, The Australian Race, page 427:
text: The nest was a foot or two from the ground, and placed in a bunch of lawyer (Calamus ) canes.
ref: 1901, Archibald James Campbell, Nests and Eggs of Australian Birds, page 267:
text: This lawyer (Calamus australis) is a climbing palm, throwing up shoots from its roots as thick as a man's finger and tough as wire, covered with sharp spines, and bearing much divided leaves, alternating with tendrils twenty feel long.
ref: 1905, W. J. Gordon, “Jackey Jackey”, in The Boy's Own Annual, volume 28, page 318:
text: They were usually very neatly laid out under arching masses of the exasperating lawyer-palm vines ( Calamus moti and C. australis ), and consequently not too easy to examine.
ref: 1910 October, Sidney Wm. Jackson, “Additional Notes on Tooth-billed Bower-Bird (Scenopaeetes dentirostris) of North Queensland”, in The Emu: Official Organ of the Australasian Ornithologists' Union, volume 10, page 84:
text: Lawyer Vine (Calamus muelleri), also known as Hairy Mary and Wait-a-while, is actually a palm, that grows in long canes that loop and snake through the undergrowth.
ref: 2014, Germaine Greer, White Beech: The Rainforest Years, page 171:
text: The trail of the lawyer vine (CALAMUS OBSTRUENS), with its leaf sheath and long tentacles bristling with incurved hooks, is over it all.
ref: 2022, E. J. Banfield, The Confessions of a Beachcomber:
glosses: Any of various plants that have hooked thorns.
Various species of Calamus, including Calamus australis, Calamus muelleri, Calamus obstruens, Calamus vitiensis, Calamus warburgii, and Calamus moti.
examples: text: The stems of the "lawyer vine" (Flagellaria indica), buz or buzi (W.), boz (E.), are used in house-building, tying fences, etc.
ref: 2011, A. C. Haddon, W. H. R. Rivers, Reports of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits, page 89:
glosses: Any of various plants that have hooked thorns.
A woody climbing rainforest vine, Flagellaria indica.
Synonyms: advocate
attorney
counselor
Derived terms: antilawyer
barrack-room lawyer
barracks lawyer
barracks room lawyer
bush lawyer
canon lawyer
common lawyer
corporate lawyer
criminal lawyer
cyberlawyer
defence lawyer
defense lawyer
jailhouse lawyer
labour lawyer
lake lawyer
lawyerball
lawyer cane
lawyerdom
lawyerese
lawyeress
lawyer foyer
lawyering
lawyerish
lawyerism
lawyerless
lawyerlike
lawyerling
lawyerly
lawyer-readable
lawyership
lawyerspeak
lawyer-speak
lawyer vine
lawyery
neurolawyer
nonlawyer
non-lawyer
one-horse lawyer
outlawyer
Penang lawyer
Philadelphia lawyer
professional support lawyer
robolawyer
rules lawyer
sea-lawyer
sea lawyer
sharia lawyer
superlawyer
underlawyer
unlawyered