Scribe

//skɹaɪb// noun, verb, slang

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Someone who writes; a draughtsperson; a writer for another; especially, an official or public writer; an amanuensis, secretary, notary, or copyist.

    "[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."

  2. 2
    a sharp-pointed awl for marking wood or metal to be cut wordnet
  3. 3
    Someone who writes; a draughtsperson; a writer for another; especially, an official or public writer; an amanuensis, secretary, notary, or copyist.; A person who writes books or documents by hand as a profession.ᵂ

    "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."

  4. 4
    someone employed to make written copies of documents and manuscripts wordnet
  5. 5
    A journalist. informal
Show 3 more definitions
  1. 6
    informal terms for journalists wordnet
  2. 7
    A writer and doctor of the law; one skilled in the law and traditions; one who read and explained the law to the people. archaic
  3. 8
    A very sharp, steel drawing implement used in engraving and etching, a scriber.
Verb
  1. 1
    To write.
  2. 2
    score a line on with a pointed instrument, as in metalworking wordnet
  3. 3
    To write, engrave, or mark upon; to inscribe.

    "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."

  4. 4
    To record, as a scribe.
  5. 5
    To write or draw with a scribe.
Show 2 more definitions
  1. 6
    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.
  2. 7
    To score or mark with compasses or a scribing iron.

Etymology

Etymology 1

From Middle English scribe, from Old French scribe (“scribe”), from Late Latin usage of scrība (“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 scrībere (“to write, draw, draw up, draft (a paper), enlist, enroll, levy; orig. to scratch”), probably akin to scrobs (“a ditch, trench, grave”).

Etymology 2

From Middle English scryben (“to write”), from Latin scrībō (“to write”). Doublet of shrive. The carpentry sense comes from the way a workman uses a compass to mark a line before cutting.

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