sea-lawyern.
1. A shark, the tiger-shark. Also the grey or mangrove snapper.
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the world > animals > fish > subclass Elasmobranchii > order Pleurotremata > [noun] > family Carcharinidae > galeocerdo cuvier (tiger-shark)
tiger-shark1787
tiger1797
sea-lawyer1811
demoiselle1889
the world > animals > fish > superorder Acanthopterygii (spiny fins) > order Perciformes (perches) > suborder Percoidei > [noun] > family Lutjanidae (snappers) > member of (snapper)
snapper1697
mangrove snapper1735
red snapper1775
silka1818
sara1837
yelting1873
schoolmaster snapper1876
sea-lawyer1876
silk snapper1876
opakapaka1905
red emperor1936
1811 Lexicon Balatronicum Sea Lawyer, a shark.
1876 G. B. Goode Catal. Fishes Bermudas 54 Lutjanus Caxis... Gray Snapper... Its extreme cunning..has gained it the soubriquet of ‘Sea Lawyer’.
2. An argumentative sailor (see quot. 1867).
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society > travel > travel by water > one who travels by water or sea > sailor > types of sailor > [noun] > argumentative or opinionated sailor
sea-lawyer1829
sea-preacher1855
Jack Strop1910
1829 W. N. Glascock Sailors & Saints I. ii. 31 What tack are we on now?—got hold of a sea-lawyer it seems.
1848 C. C. Clifford tr. Aristophanes Frogs 37 But now they are sea-lawyers every one, And when you bid them pull, they do demur.
1867 W. H. Smyth & E. Belcher Sailor's Word-bk. Sea-lawyer, an idle litigious 'long-shorer, more given to question orders than to obey them. One of the pests of the navy as well as of the mercantile marine.
1873 ‘Vanderdecken’ Yachts & Yachting xxix. 247 There are not a few sea-lawyers to be met with amongst the pleasure navy Jacks.
a1953 D. Thomas Under Milk Wood (1954) 4 Alfred Pomeroy Jones, sealawyer, born in Mumbles.
1967 A. Dubus Lieutenant iii. 78 Forget about this sea lawyer business and face your Goddamn punishment like a man.
This entry has not yet been fully updated (first published 1911; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1811