Amanuensis
noun ·Uncommon ·College level
Definitions
- 1 One employed to take dictation, or copy manuscripts.
"As pay was Lady Anne's object, and poor Georgiana was intended to be the amanuensis, should she be found capable of forming sentences out of disjointed hints, and of wrapping foul facts in clean composition."
- 2 someone skilled in the transcription of speech (especially dictation) wordnet
- 3 A clerk, secretary or stenographer, or scribe.
"In consequence of this fashion of authors dictating their works, expedition came to be considered of the utmost importance; it was regarded as the chief accomplishment of an amanuensis; and he alone was considered as perfect in his art, whose pen could equal the rapidity of utterance: […]"
Example
More examples"As pay was Lady Anne's object, and poor Georgiana was intended to be the amanuensis, should she be found capable of forming sentences out of disjointed hints, and of wrapping foul facts in clean composition."
Etymology
From Latin āmanuēnsis (“secretary”), from ab- (“from, off (of)”) + manus (“hand”) + -ensis (“of or from (a place)”), early 17th c.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.