Koto Player

Someone who plays a Japanese stringed instrument called the koto.

"'We have some of the finest players of our day right here in this house. They can hold their own, I am sure of it, with the professionals. My own formal training was neglected, but when I was a boy I was eager to learn what was to be learned. I had lessons from the famous masters and looked into the secret traditions of all the great houses. I came upon no one who exactly struck me dumb with admiration. It is even worse today. Young people dabble at music and pick up mannerisms, and what passes for music is very shallow stuff indeed. You are almost alone in your attention to this seven-stringed koto. I doubt that we could find your equal all through the court.'"

Murasaki Shikibu, The Tale of Genji (11th Century).

[Translated by Edward G. Seidensticker.]

Priest

A minister in a non-Christian religion. In various Christian sects, a second grade of clergy ranking below a bishop but above a deacon and having authority to pronounce absolution and administer all sacraments save that of ordination (American Heritage).

"By 1441 Gloucester's authority in the State was wellnigh ended, but some historians believe his enemies used the charge against his wife to deliver the coup de grace. As a preliminary, charges were brought against two men, Roger Bolingbroke, an Oxford priest, 'a great and cunning man in astronomy', and Thomas Southwell, canon of St Stephen's, Westminster, who were accused of making a wax image of Henry VI, which they exposed to a slow fire, and by aid of the devil, as the image melted, so the life of the king would fade away. Bolingbroke, on a July Sunday in 1441, was placed on a high scaffold outside St Paul's, arrayed in his magic garments. About him were the writings, the images of wax, silver and metal, together with other instruments of his craft. He had a paper crown and there before the multitude swore to abuse his false craft of the devil. From there he was taken to the Tower to await further judgement."

Six Medieval Men & Women, "Henry, duke of Gloucester," H. S. Bennett (1955).

Amanuensis

Someone who copies dictation. A secretary. A learned hand.

"Towards the end of her days she made two attempts to record all that had happened in her adventurous life. Although she had often been asked to put it down on paper, she for long refused, saying that the time was not ripe. Shortly before her last journey, however, she decided that the time had now come and, as she thought, the man to act as her amanuensis, for she could not write herself. This man, she tells us, had lived for many years in 'Dutchland' (Germany), and on his return had come to live with her. Although she does not say so, it seems highly probable that this was her son, who, as we have seen, came to Lynn with his wife and child about this time. Be this as it may, he had only taken down part of her story when he died, and for a while Margery could get no one to help her. In the end she prevailed on a priest whom she trusted, and who had pressed her to set down her story, to look at what had been done. When he did so he complained that the language was neither English nor 'Dutch', and furthermore that the book was written in a difficult hand which he was most reluctant to try to reduce to order. Finally he made a start in July 1435, and although he found the script so hard to read that he thought the Devil had affected his eyesight, by reading it word by word to Margery and being aided by her memory when the text was obscure, he successfully rewrote Book I, and then turned to write Book II, telling of Margery's further history and her last pilgrimage."

Six Medieval Men & Women, "Margery Kempe," H. S. Bennett (1955).

Pressed Man

A man who is forced into military service, often when a war is already raging, sometimes for pay, sometimes without.

"To Deptford to the yard, and so back to the Tower several times about the business of the pressed men, and late at it till twelve at night, shipping of them. But, Lord! how some poor women did cry; and in my life I never did see such natural expression of passion as I did here in some women's bewailing themselves, and running to every parcel of men that were brought, one after another, to look for their husbands; and wept over every vessel that went off, thinking they might be there, and looking after the ship as far as ever they could by moonlight, that it grieved me to the heart to hear them. Besides, to see poor patient labouring men and housekeepers leaving poor wives and families, taken up on a sudden by strangers, was very hard, and that without press-money, but forced against all law to be gone. It is a great tyranny."

Samuel Pepys, Diary (July 1, 1666).

Major-domo

The head servant in a prince's palace or a wealthy person's mansion.

"The truth was that, in a world of shifting allegiances--and since the death of his grandmother's faithful major-domo--she was the only person he could trust, and, at the same time, use. Only she knew the hay-loft where the Hebrew scholar Dr. Kraus--and his Talmuds--was in hiding: she would risk her life to fetch him food. Only she had the key to the cellar where, throughout the War, the porcelains were stored."

Bruce Chatwin, Utz (1988).

Counterfeiter

One who makes fraudulent imitations of coins, seals, documents, etc. A forger. A coiner.

"Something unexpected! France sells!... this excluded, condemned, blacklisted France. They come despite themselves, despite themselves, they buy. They buy models, which they are going, whether well or badly, to copy back home. Such English declare in an inquest that they have an office in Paris, to obtain some models. A few pieces bought in Paris, in Lyon, in Alsace, then copied over there, are enough for the English or German counterfeiter to inundate the world. It's the same with bookstores: the French write, the Belgians sell."

Jules Michelet, The People (1846).

Coralist

Someone who buys and sells coral or makes things out of coral.

"The creation of the Muslim Empire, and then of states within its former territories, led to the growth of large cities, where palaces, governments and urban populations needed foodstuffs, raw materials for manufacture, and luxuries to display wealth and power, and where the changes and complexities of city life led to a desire for novelty and for imitation of the fashions of the powerful or the stranger. Urban demand and the relative ease of communications gave new directions and methods of organization to the long-distance trade which had always existed. Very bulky goods could not profitably be carried a very long way, and for most of its food the city had to look to its immediate hinterland; but on some goods the return was such as to justify their being carried over long distances. Pepper and other spices, precious stones, fine cloth and porcelain came from India and China, furs from the northern countries; coral, ivory and textiles were sent in return. The Middle Eastern cities were not only consumers but producers of manufactured goods for export as well as their own use. Some of the production was on a large scale--armaments of war produced in state arsenals, fine textiles for the palace, sugar refineries and papermills--but most took place in small workshops for textiles or metalwork."

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

Muckraker

Someone hired to rake manure. A hoarder of money. More recently, an investigative reporter.

"Those all-gathering muckrakes, who in due time are succeeded by all-scattering folks, which scatter riches as profusely as their sires gathered them promiscuously."

David Haddon Spurgeon, The Treasury of David; containing an original exposition of the Book of Psalms (1870).

Mumper

A beggar who scorns to beg for food but instead asks for money or clothes.

“Sir Tristram, violer d’amores, fr’over the short sea, had passencore rearrived from North Armorica on this side the scraggy isthmus of Europe Minor to wielderfight his penisolate war: nor had topsawyer’s rocks by the stream Oconee exaggerated themselse to Laurens County’s gorgios while they went doublin their mumper all the time: nor avoice from afire bellowsed mishe mishe to tauftauf thuartpeatrick: not yet, though venissoon after, had a kidscad buttended a bland old isaac: not yet, though all’s fair in vanessy, were sosie sesthers wroth with twone nathandjoe. Rot a peck of pa’s malt had Jhem or Shen brewed by arclight and rory end to the regginbrow was to be seen ringsome on the aquaface.”

James Joyce, Finnegans Wake (1939).

Zoographer

A painter (or describer) of animals.

"The earlier writers on art, who flourished before the age of Trajan and the Antonines, constantly entitle their books 'on zoographers,' 'on zoography'--this was their only usual denomination for painting, as if 'still life' did not merit the name."

William Taylor in The Monthly Magazine and British register XXXVII (1814).

Lanceprisado

A soldier who has broken his lance in warfare many times. A seasoned veteran.

"I will learne to roare, and still maintain the name of captaine over these Launcepresadoes."

Thomas Middleton & W. Rowley, A Faire Quarrell (1617).

Coal-Backer

A man who carries loads of coal, on his back, all day long, between a ship and a wharf or wagon.

"Coal backing is as heavy a class of labour as any performed."

Henry Mayhew, London Labour and the London poor (1861).

Go-Between

A pander.

"I knew that a young fellow was always visiting her bedroom and I longed to catch a glimpse of his features; unfortunately, the blinkers that I wore for my work at the mill prevented this. But for them, I felt sure that I should have been able to catch the whore at her tricks. A nasty old woman acted as her confidante and go-between and the two were inseparable. As soon as breakfast was over they would drink flagons of untempered wine, as if for a bet, and their one topic of conversation was how to cheat the poor baker."

Apuleius, The Golden Ass, 2nd Century A.D.

[translated by Robert Graves].

Baker

Someone supplying the staff of life.

"The connection between seigneurial power and urban vitality is self-evident. When an active court had its seat in the countryside, it would quickly give rise to an urban settlement. Before the year 1000 a burgus had formed at the abbey gate of Cluny; by the end of the twelfth century it could probably have mustered some two thousand inhabitants, closely associated for the most part with the economy of the large and extravagant monastic household. In Alsace, Haguenau became a little town shortly after Frederick Barbarossa had founded a palace there in 1164. The initial role of the burgi was to make provision for the lord's court by means of handicrafts and trade. Craft industries appear to have been entirely domestic in origin. They evolved in the form of outgrowths from manorial utilities: bread-oven, forge, tannery and weaving shed. Little by little these workshops offered part of what they produced to outside customers. The man who had charge of a bread-oven at the approaches to the bridge at Macon in the late eleventh century first supplied the bishop's household; he also sold bread to travellers, and his business grew as the road became busier, likewise his share of economic independence."

Georges Duby, The Early Growth of European Economy (1969).

[Translated by Howard B. Clarke.]

Topiarius

A gardener who specializes in cutting trees and shrubs into imaginative shapes.

“The zeal of the topiarius tortured the bushes into extravagant forms.”

The Edinburgh Review (1896).

Peon

A debtor in Mexico, who has to work for a creditor until his debts are worked off.

"If a debtor owes money and cannot pay it, his creditor is allowed by Law to make a slave or peon of him until the debt is liquidated."

Edward B. Tylor, Anahuac: or Mexico and the Mexicans (1860).

Samurai

The warrior class in Japan.

"The basis of the feudal system lay in the strict maintenance of hierarchy. Thus, there was no simple crime of seduction, abduction, elopement, rape, or murder: the criminality lay in the comparative rank of the doer and the victim. Legalized murder was, it is true, a privilege only of the samurai, and even for them, it was legitimate only toward persons of lower rank or class, and on at least technical provocation. The other acts of violence, however, might well have gone unpunished in a townsman employer toward an employee. When the ranks were reversed, the punishment was death."

Saikaku, Five Women Who Loved Love (1956).

[Translated by Richard Lane.]

Turnspit

Someone whose job is to turn roasts on a spit over a fire.

"Down rushed the English in hot wrath, full a hundred men in all--cooks and turnspits, boys and varlets, and good men at arms: they came about Bertrand like bees, and cast great flint-stones to smite him down. An English squire raised his axe and smote one of Bertrand's comrades on the ear; wherewith he fell asleep on the highroad, never to wake again for all that men might cry in his ear."

Capture of the Castle of Fougeray, Picard de Cuvelier (1350).

Urn Maker

A potter or ceramicist who specializes in fashioning round or oval containers, especially prevalent among the Greeks and Romans, for containing the ashen remains of the dead. In ancient Rome, also used to hold voting tablets, balls, and lots.

"Alas, how small an Urne containes a King!"

Thomas Dekker, The famous history of Sir Thomas Wyat (1607).

Dentist

A tooth doctor.

"All liars. Make use of 'steel balm' [the forceps]. They are also thought to be chiropodists. Call themselves surgeons, just as opticians call themselves engineers."

Flaubert, Dictionary of Platitudes (1880).

[Translation by J. I. Rodale (1954).]