scrivener
/ˈskrɪv(ə)nə
/noun historical
1A clerk, scribe, or notary.His father, a scrivener, had rebelled against his father's Catholicism to become an Anglican (and been disinherited for his apostasy)....
- It is also not clear why, occasionally, the scrivener found it necessary to record the family connections for some men while not so at other times.
- The first entry made by the scrivener for the town of Braga in northern Portugal, on Saturday, 5 February 1569, refers to a petition before the municipal council from Ilena Piriz.
2A person who invested money at interest for clients and lent funds to those who wanted to raise money on security.Note also that the scrivener recorded the trade for the male applicant but not for the two female....
- Occasionally, courts admitted shopbooks as evidence but the exception normally was narrowly applied to circumstances in which the scrivener was not available to testify.
- That was quite a concession, given that they wanted the intent of the erroneous scrivener to prevail in interpretation.
Origin
Middle English (in sense 1): shortening of Old French escrivein, from Latin scriba (see scribe). sense 2 dates from the early 17th century.