Thief

Someone who ignores property rights and wrongs.

"But what do men seek from these saints except what belongs to folly? Amongst all the votive offerings you see covering the walls of certain churches right up to the very roof, have you ever seen one put up for an escape from folly or for the slightest gain in wisdom? One man escaped drowning, another was run through by his enemy and survived, another boldly (and equally fortunately) fled from battle and left his fellows to continue the fight. Another fell down from the gallows, thanks to some saint who befriends thieves, and went on to relieve a good many people of their burden of wealth. This one broke out of prison, that one recovered from a fever, to the annoyance of his doctors; yet another swallowed poison, but it acted as a purge and did him good instead of killing him--a waste of effort and money for his wife, who was not at all pleased. Another upset his wagon but drove his horses home unhurt, another escaped with his life when his house collapsed, and another was caught in the act by a husband but got away. Not one of them gives thanks for being rid of folly, and it's so pleasant not to be wise that mortals would prefer to pray for deliverance from anything rather than from me."

Erasmus, Praise of Folly (1509)

[translated by Betty Radice, notes by A. H. T. Levi (1993)].

Statesman

A politician who talks a good game.

“Through all the employments of life,

Each neighbour abuses his brother;

Whore and rogue, they call husband and wife;

All professions be-rogue one another.

The priest calls the lawyer a cheat;

The lawyer be-knaves the divine;

And the statesman, because he’s so great,

Thinks his trade as honest as mine.”

John Gay, The Beggar’s Opera (1728).

Shifter

A scene changer in the theater.

"Two or three shifters of scenes, with the two candle-snuffers, make up a compleat body of Guards upon the English stage."

Joseph Addison, The Spectator No. 42 (1711).

Monopolist

Someone whose fondest dream is to corner a market and dictate the price.

"We know what monopolists are: men who want to keep a trade all to themselves, under the pretence that they'll furnish the public with a better article."

George Eliot, Felix Holt (1866).

Bread-master

The person in charge of the noble loaves, crusts, and crumbs.

“The functions or groupings, which the Middle Ages designated by the words ‘estate’ and ‘order,’ are of very diverse natures. There are, first of all, the estates of the realm, but there are also the trades, the state of matrimony and that of virginity, the state of sin. At court there are the ‘four estates of body and mouth’: bread-masters, cup-bearers, carvers, and cooks. In the Church there are sacerdotal orders and monastic orders. Finally, there are the different orders of chivalry. That which, in medieval thought, establishes unity in the very dissimilar meanings of the word, is the conviction that every one of these groupings represents a divine institution, an element of the organism of Creation emanating from the will of God, constituting an actual entity, and being, at bottom, as venerable as the angelic hierarchy.”

J. Huizinga, The Waning of the Middle Ages (1924).

Bailiff

A steward working for a landholder. A judge or jailer on a ship.

"The economy of the latifundia was quite different. It began to be developed in the second century B.C. in the south of Italy, Sicily, Sardinia, and later in North Africa. It was, in part, the result of the conquests and the immense influx of wealth and manpower which submerged Italy and later the entire West. We know it chiefly through literary descriptions. Its development usually involved some changing over from arboriculture to pastoral farming, and in certain regions such as Sicily or North Africa it led to large-scale grain production aimed at supplying the Italian markets. These were immense estates of many hundreds of acres and were owned by members of the Roman aristocracy, the great senatorial families. A number of these estates were later confiscated and passed into the hands of the emperor after the civil wars, to form the core of the great imperial domains of the second century A.D. At the same time the large private holdings, upon which the power of the Roman aristocracy depended right up till the end of the Empire, did not disappear--witness the estates of Symmachus or of Saint Melania at the beginning of the fifth century. Needless to say, the owner of such domains as these, which often included land in various provinces, did not reside on his estates. All he did was pocket the income which his bailiffs turned over to him. These bailiffs were very much more important people than the overseers of Cato's De Agricultura. Likewise, the slaves who worked on these estates were not counted in tens, but in hundreds or thousands. Most of them came from the East, prisoners of war or human cattle bought in the Aegean markets, especially at Delos, where, according to Strabo, as many as 10,000 slaves could be turned over in a day."

Claude Mossé, The Ancient World of Work (1969)

[Translated by Janet Lloyd].

Bookkeeper

A juggler.

"Melancholy ghosts of departed book-keepers, who had fallen dead at the desk."

Charles Dickens, American notes for general circulation (1842).

Biographer

A historian who writes biographies, trying to make sense of the lives of real people, whether living or dead at the time.

"An important and distinctive type of Islamic writing sprang from an impulse similar to that which led to the giving of ijazas: the biographical dictionary. Its origin is to be found in the collection of hadiths. In order to verify a hadith, it was necessary to know who had transmitted it, and from whom he had himself learned it; it was important to be sure that the transmission had been continuous, but also that those who had transmitted it were honest and reliable. Gradually the collection of biographies was extended from the narrators of hadiths to other groups--legal scholars, doctors, Sufi masters, and so on."

Albert Hourani, A History of the Arab Peoples (1991).

Whiffler

A guard armed with a javelin, battle-axe, sword, or staff, and who wears a chain and keeps the way clear for a procession or public spectacle (OED).

"The deep-mouth'd Sea, Which like a mightie Whiffler 'fore the King, Seemes to prepare his way."

William Shakespeare, Henry V (1599).

Padder

A robber on foot. A footpad. A highwayman.

"If she had stirred out of doors, there were Whipsters abroad, i' faith, padders of maidenheads."

John Dryden and the Duke of Newcastle, Sir Martin Mar-all, or the feigned innocence (1667).

Preacher

“After Olivier Maillard had been preaching Lenten sermons at Orléans, the roofs of the houses surrounding the place whence he had addressed the people had been so damaged by the spectators who had climbed on to them, that the roofer sent in a bill for repairs extending over sixty-four days.”

J. Huizinga, The Waning of the Middle Ages (1924).

Editor

Someone who lends writers undeserved reputations for wit or idiocy.

Apologist

Someone paid to defend the indefensible.

"Thus pleads the devil's fair apologist."

Edward Young, Love of Fame (1728).

Courtier

Someone who is part of a king or queen's entourage. One with an aptitude for flattering, stroking, and amusing those in power. A hanger-on.

"This again addeth to the courtiers' misery, that if the king have promised to stay anywhere, and especially if the herald have publicly proclaimed this as the royal will, then be sure that he will set out at daybreak, mocking all men's expectation by his sudden change of purpose.

Whereby it cometh frequently to pass that such courtiers as have let themselves be bled, or have taken some purgative, must yet follow their prince forthwith without regard to their own bodies, and, setting their life on the hazard of a die, hasten blindfold to ruin for dread of losing that which they have not, nor never shall have."

Peter of Blois, 14th Letter (12th century).

Pannier-man

A fish seller who brings his goods to market in a large basket known as a pannier. The officer in the Inns of Court, who brought provisions back from the market using a horse and panniers.

"If the pannier-man's jack was ever better known by his loins of mutton, I'll be flayed."

Ben Jonson, Bartholomew Fair (1614).

Rifler

A robber, plunderer, or spoiler.

"The riflers committed depredations on the most irreproachable persons, when any booty was to be got."

Thomas Carte, A general history of England (1750).

Knouter

A flogger who used a knotted whip, called a knout, to whip condemned criminals (especially in Russia).

“A gigantic creature, solidly made and black bearded to the waist, Ivan once had the honor of serving as official knouter to the Great White Tsar.”

Elif Batuman, The Possessed (2010).

Jester

A comic.

"Now whether a party can have much success without a woman present I must ask others to decide, but one thing is certain, no party is any fun unless seasoned with folly. In fact, if there's no one there to raise a laugh with his folly, genuine or assumed, they have to bring on a 'jester', one who's paid for the job, or invite some absurd hanger-on whose laughable, that is, foolish, remarks will banish silence and gloom from the company. What was the point of loading the stomach with all those delicacies, fancy dishes, and titbits if the eyes and ears and the whole mind can't be fed as well on laughter, jokes, and wit?"

Erasmus, Praise of Folly, (1509)

[translated by Betty Radice, notes by A. H. T. Levi (1993)].

Economist

A practitioner of a form of voodoo known as the “dismal science.”

“What is the appropriate punishment for financial swindling, a white-collar crime? As an economist, I am not qualified to discuss such an issue. However, I cannot forebear from calling attention to one punishment suggested, or at least mentioned, three times. At the time of the South Sea bubble, one member of the House of Commons, Molesworth, in a speech that Carswell says was thought absurd at the time, considered that Parliament should declare the directors of the South Sea Company guilty of parricide and subject them to the ancient Roman punishment for that transgression—to be sewn into sacks, each with a monkey and a snake, and drowned.”

Charles P. Kindleberger, Manias, Panics, and Crashes (1989).

Swindler

A fraud. Someone who cheats people of their money without having to resort to violence. A white-collar criminal.

“Cynics may share the belief of W. C. Fields that ‘You can’t cheat an honest man’ and that victims of swindles have mainly themselves to blame. Mundus vult decipi—ergo decipitatur: the world wants to be deceived, let it therefore be deceived. In the view of psychiatry, I am told, swindler and victim are bound together in a symbiotic, love-hate relationship that both find satisfaction in and depend on.”

Charles P. Kindleberger, Manias, Panics, and Crashes (1989).