lawyer

See also: Lawyer

English

Alternative forms

Etymology

From Middle English lawyer, lawer, equivalent to law +‎ -yer.

Pronunciation

  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˈlɔːjə(ɹ)/, /ˈlɔɪ.ə(ɹ)/[1]
  • (US, Northern and Western) IPA(key): /ˈlɔɪ.ɚ/
  • (US, Southern) IPA(key): /ˈlɔ.jɚ/
  • Audio (US)(file)
  • Rhymes: -ɔɪ.ə(ɹ)
  • Hyphenation: law‧yer

Noun

lawyer (plural lawyers)

  1. A professional person qualified (as by a law degree and/or bar exam) and authorized to practice law, i.e. conduct lawsuits and/or give legal advice.
    • 1907, Robert William Chambers, chapter II, in The Younger Set (Project Gutenberg; EBook #14852), New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, published 1 February 2005 (Project Gutenberg version), OCLC 24962326:
      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; […].
  2. By extension, a legal layman who argues points of law.

Synonyms

Derived terms

Translations

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout#Translations.

Verb

lawyer (third-person singular simple present lawyers, present participle lawyering, simple past and past participle lawyered)

  1. (informal, intransitive) To practice law.
  2. (intransitive) To perform, or attempt to perform, the work of a lawyer.
  3. (intransitive) To make legalistic arguments.
  4. (informal, transitive) To barrage (a person) with questions in order to get them to admit something.
    You've been lawyered!

See also

References

  1. ↑ Oxford English Dictionary. "Lawyer, n."

Anagrams

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