lawyer

noun

1. A professional person with a graduate law degree that qualifies for legal work (such as Juris Doctor)
2. A professional person qualified (as by a law degree or bar exam) and authorized to practice law as an attorney-at-law, solicitor, advocate, barrister or equivalent, i.e. represent parties in lawsuits or trials and give legal advice.

   “His forefathers had been, as a rule, professional men—physicians and lawyers; his grandfather died under the walls of Chapultepec Castle while twisting a tourniquet for a cursing dragoon; an uncle remained indefinitely at Malvern Hill;[…].”

   “Mr. Wells was a pleasant man of middle-age, with keen eyes, and the typical lawyer’s mouth.”

   “A lawyer's time and advice are his stock in trade. [one of various versions of an aphorism in law]”

3. (broadly)A legal layman who argues points of law.
4. (UK, colloquial)The burbot.
5. (UK, dialectal)The stem of a bramble.
6. Any of various plants that have hooked thorns.

   “The species of Eugnomus are very partial to the lawyer (Rubus australis ) when in bloom.”

   “In the lawyer (Rubus australis) a considerable differentiation has taken place. All the alllies of this plant (such as the true roses, brambles, rasps, &c.), exhibit a strong development of epidermal structures in the form of hooks, spines, or hairs, but in none are these structures so perfect as in our lawyer.”

   “A plant that is excessively troublesome in the localities where the native vegetation has been least disturbed is the “lawyer” (Rubus australis).”

7. Any of various plants that have hooked thorns.

   “Besides the bags and nets common throughout the continent, these tribes have water-bags, which they make of closely-plaited “lawyer” (Calamus Australis), and also of palm-leaf sewn with the sinews of animals.”

   “The nest was a foot or two from the ground, and placed in a bunch of lawyer (Calamus ) canes.”

   “This lawyer (Calamus australis) is a climbing palm, throwing up shoots from its roots as thick as a man's finger and tough as wire, covered with sharp spines, and bearing much divided leaves, alternating with tendrils twenty feel long.”

   “They were usually very neatly laid out under arching masses of the exasperating lawyer-palm vines ( Calamus moti and C. australis ), and consequently not too easy to examine.”

   “Lawyer Vine (Calamus muelleri), also known as Hairy Mary and Wait-a-while, is actually a palm, that grows in long canes that loop and snake through the undergrowth.”

8. Any of various plants that have hooked thorns.

   “The stems of the "lawyer vine" (Flagellaria indica), buz or buzi (W.), boz (E.), are used in house-building, tying fences, etc.”

verb

1. (informal, intransitive)To practice law.
2. (intransitive)To perform, or attempt to perform, the work of a lawyer.
3. (intransitive)To make legalistic arguments.
4. (informal, transitive)To barrage (a person) with questions in order to get them to admit something.

   “You've been lawyered!”

name

1. A male given name.