Sentence:  Had More 's writings been wholly limited to such exercises , they would be almost as dimly remembered as those of a dozen or so other <WSD>authors</WSD> living in his time , whose works tenuously survive in the minds of the few hundred scholars who each decade in pursuit of their very specialized occasions read those works . 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  writes (books or stories or articles or the like) professionally (for pay)