scribe
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English
[edit]Etymology
[edit]From Middle English scribe, from Old French scribe (“scribe”), from Late Latin usage of scriba (“secretary”) (used in the Vulgate Bible translation to render Ancient Greek γραμματεύς (grammateús, “scribe, secretary”), which had been used in its turn to render the Hebrew סופר (“writer, scholar”)) from scribere (“to write, draw, draw up, draft (a paper), enlist, enroll, levy; orig. to scratch”), probably akin to scrobs (“a ditch, trench, grave”). Doublet of shrive.
The verb sense used in carpentry comes from the way a workman uses a compass to mark a line before cutting.
Pronunciation
[edit]- IPA(key): /skɹaɪb/
- Rhymes: -aɪb
Audio (Southern England): (file)
Noun
[edit]scribe (plural scribes)
- Someone who writes; a draughtsperson; a writer for another; especially, an official or public writer; an amanuensis, secretary, notary, or copyist.
- 2013 September 14, Jane Shilling, “The Golden Thread: the Story of Writing, by Ewan Clayton, review [print edition: Illuminating language]”, in The Daily Telegraph (Review)[1], page R28:
- [T]he pleasure of writing on wax with a stylus is exemplified by the fine, flowing hand of a Roman scribe who made out the birth certificate of Herennia Gemella, born March 128 AD.
- A person who writes books or documents by hand as a profession.W
- 2013 September-October, Henry Petroski, “The Evolution of Eyeglasses”, in American Scientist:
- The ability of a segment of a glass sphere to magnify whatever is placed before it was known around the year 1000, when the spherical segment was called a reading stone, […] . Scribes, illuminators, and scholars held such stones directly over manuscript pages as an aid in seeing what was being written, drawn, or read.
- (informal) A journalist.
- (archaic) A writer and doctor of the law; one skilled in the law and traditions; one who read and explained the law to the people.
- A very sharp, steel drawing implement used in engraving and etching, a scriber.
Synonyms
[edit]Derived terms
[edit]Translations
[edit]one who writes; a draughtsman
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writer and doctor of the law
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steel drawing implement
journalist
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- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Verb
[edit]scribe (third-person singular simple present scribes, present participle scribing, simple past and past participle scribed)
- To write.
- To write, engrave, or mark upon; to inscribe.
- c. 1597–1598, Edmund Spenser, “Two Cantos of Mutabilitie: […]. Book VII, Canto VI.”, in The Faerie Queene, […], London: […] H[umphrey] L[ownes] for Mathew Lownes, published 1609, →OCLC, stanza 35, page 356:
- There—at Ioue wexed wroth, and in his ſpright / Did inly grudge, yet did it well conceale; / And bade Dan Phœbus Scribe her Appellation ſeale.
- 1812, anonymous author, The Trial:
- he scribed his name on the mould, and wrote it on the two pieces of pasteboard
- 2006, Matt Wray, Not Quite White, page 121:
- There was the curious fascination expressed regarding the triangular relationship between the poor white, the black, and the hookworm — suggesting a desire to differentiate and segregate the poor white body from that of the black and to scribe more boldly what was often, for the poorest people of the South, a very thin line.
- To record, as a scribe.
- To write or draw with a scribe.
- (carpentry) To cut (something) in order to fit it closely to an irregular surface, as a baseboard to a floor which is out of level, a board to the curves of a moulding, etc.
- To score or mark with compasses or a scribing iron.
Related terms
[edit]Translations
[edit]to write
to record
to write or draw with a scribe
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See also
[edit]Further reading
[edit]- “scribe”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
- “scribe”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
French
[edit]Etymology
[edit]Borrowed from Latin scrība. Doublet of écrivain.
Pronunciation
[edit]Noun
[edit]scribe m (plural scribes)
Further reading
[edit]- “scribe”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.
Interlingua
[edit]Verb
[edit]scribe
- present of scriber
- imperative of scriber
Latin
[edit]Verb
[edit]scrībe
Occitan
[edit]Verb
[edit]scribe
Categories:
- English terms derived from Proto-Indo-European
- English terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *(s)kreybʰ-
- English terms inherited from Middle English
- English terms derived from Middle English
- English terms derived from Old French
- English terms derived from Late Latin
- English doublets
- English 1-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- Rhymes:English/aɪb
- Rhymes:English/aɪb/1 syllable
- English terms with audio pronunciation
- English lemmas
- English nouns
- English countable nouns
- English terms with quotations
- English informal terms
- English terms with archaic senses
- English verbs
- en:Carpentry
- en:Occupations
- en:People
- French terms borrowed from Latin
- French terms derived from Latin
- French doublets
- French 1-syllable words
- French terms with IPA pronunciation
- French lemmas
- French nouns
- French countable nouns
- French masculine nouns
- Interlingua non-lemma forms
- Interlingua verb forms
- Latin non-lemma forms
- Latin verb forms
- Occitan lemmas
- Occitan verbs
- Gascon