This blog is for everyone who uses words.

The ordinary-sized words are for everyone, but the big ones are especially for children.



Friday, 17 July 2015

Word To Use Today: legist.

File:Karl Dane chorus girls 1927.jpg
The Karl Dane Chorus Girls

Legist? 

No, not necessarily a leg-fancier, a dancer: 



a champion walker or an acrobat - though a legist might be any or all of those things.

You say this word LEEgist, with the g very soft (as in the French mange, or more or less like the s in treasure) and it means someone who's an expert on the law.

15. Image of Tom Kettle, economist, lawyer and historical political figure. Shown as a barrister when called to the Irish law bar in 1905 via Wikimedia Commons
That's Tom Kettle looking like a lawyer (and a heart-throb) though he's actually best known as an economist.

How you tell a legist from a complete and utter charlatan, though, I have not the faintest idea.

Word To Use Today: legist. This word arrived in English in the 1400s from the Mediaeval Latin lēgista, from lēx, which means law.




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