Assayer

Also 5 assayar, 5–7 assaier, -or, -our. [a. AF. assaior, -our, f. assayer to ASSAY. See -ER¹.]

  1.  One who tries, finds out by trial, or attempts.

1398.  Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., V. xlii. (1495), 158. Wyse men and assayers telle that … that gutte … is alwaye founde voyde and empti.

c. 1449.  Pecock, Repr., I. xi. 58. As experience wole nedis proue to eche asaier.

1828.  Carlyle, Misc. (1857), I. 173. The Assayers have Christian dispositions.

  2.  One who assays metals.

[1423.  Act 2 Hen. VI., xii. Et que ceux assaiour, controllour soient vaillantes, credible et expertz persones eiantes notorie science en la mestiere d’orfeour et de mynt.]

1618.  Pulton, transl. And that the Assaier and Comptroller be expert men.

1641.  Termes de la Ley, 27. Assayer is an officer of the Mint appointed by the Statute of 2. H. 6. cap. 12.

1796.  Pearson, in Phil. Trans., LXXXVI. 410. The Assayers observe it from charges of lead with silver.

1852.  McCulloch, Taxation, II. vi. § 2. 275. The offence of counterfeiting … the marks, stamps, &c., impressed on plate by the assayers, was formerly felony.

1860.  W. White, Wrekin, xxvi. 272. Borax is the flux of assayers.

  3.  An officer who tastes food before it is served to a prince or lord, a fore-taster (L. prægustātor).

  (This sense of the word seems to have originated in a corruption of, or confusion with, ASSEOUR, ‘he who sets the table,’ f. F. asseoir ‘to seat, set,’ apparently the original name of this officer, referring to another duty: see also ASSEWER.)

[c. 1315.  Househ. Ord. Ed. II., transl. 1601 (1876), § 26. The kinge shal have a squier surveiour and warden of the viandes for his mouth, and to take the assay at his table [Fr. asseour de sa table]. § 37. Three esquiers assaiors of the messe [Fr. asseours de la messe] in the hal, ought to sett the messes in the halles, and that with as good advisement as thei can, so as men of state and others be servid according to their estate. §§ 48, 49, 50. The asseour of the kinges table.

c. 1400[?].  K. Robt. Cysille, in Hazl., E. P. P., I. 276.

1693.  W. Robertson, Phraseol. Gen., 154. An Assayer or tryer, He that assayeth or tasteth first, Prægustator.

1861.  Our Eng. Homes, 65. The assayer and his office.