scribe
pronunciation
How to pronounce scribe in British English:
UK [skraɪb]
How to pronounce scribe in American English:
US [skraɪb]
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- Noun:
- informal terms for journalists
- someone employed to make written copies of documents and manuscripts
- a sharp-pointed awl for marking wood or metal to be cut
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- Verb:
- score a line on with a pointed instrument, as in metalworking
Word Origin
- scribe
- scribe: [14] Scribe is at the centre of a large network of English words that go back to Latin scrībere ‘write’. Others include ascribe [15], describe, scribble [15], and shrive, while its past participle scriptus has contributed script [14], scripture [13], and transcript [13]. Scribe itself comes from the Latin derivative scrība ‘official writer’. Scrībere went back to an Indo-European base which meant ‘cut, incise’, reflecting the origins of writing in carving marks on stone, wood, or clay; this was *skreibh-, an extension of *sker-, from which English gets shear, short, etc.=> ascribe, conscription, describe, scribble, script, share, shear, short, shrive, transcribe
- scribe (v.)
- "to write," mid-15c., from Latin scribere "to write" (see script (n.)).
- scribe (n.)
- c. 1200, "professional interpreter of the Jewish Law" (late 11c. as a surname), from Church Latin scriba "teacher of Jewish law," used in Vulgate to render Greek grammateus (corresponding to Hebrew sopher "writer, scholar"), special use of Latin scriba "keeper of accounts, secretary, writer," from past participle stem of scribere "to write;" see script (n.). Sense "one who writes, official or public writer" in English is from late 14c.
Example
- 1. The scribe worked hard to support his family .
- 2. The scribe who sits within the king 's gates .
- 3. Journalism , as a veteran scribe once put it , is a rough old trade .
- 4. 1760 B.c. a historical survey of oxen pricing is stamped onto a clay tablet by urglat the chronicler , chief scribe in hammurabi 's court .
- 5. This note is written in the fine , flowing script of a professional scribe .