[f. JOURNEY sb. 5 + MAN.]
1. One who, having served his apprenticeship to a handicraft or trade, is qualified to work at it for days’ wages; a mechanic who has served his apprenticeship or learned a trade or handicraft, and works at it not on his own account but as the servant or employee of another; a qualified mechanic or artisan who works for another. Distinguished on one side from apprentice, on the other from master.
1463–4. Rolls Parlt., V. 506/2. Aswell housholders as journeymen, Servauntes and Apprenticez.
1481. in Eng. Gilds (1870), 332. If any of the Jornaymen of the saide crafte be electe Warden.
c. 1550. Disc. Common Weal Eng., 56. To give my Iorney men ijd a daye more.
1608. Vestry Bks. (Surtees), 214. No younge man, journamen nor prentice.
1758. Johnson, Idler, No. 26, ¶ 8. My mistress … rose early in the morning to set the journeymen to work.
1849. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., viii. II. 274. The government appears to have had no hold on such a man, except the hold which master bakers and master tailors have on their journeymen.
1863. W. G. Blaikie, Better Days Work. People, ii. (1864), 81. The journeyman tyrannises over the apprentice.
2. fig. (chiefly depreciatory): a. One who is not a ‘master’ of his trade or business. b. One who drudges for another; a hireling, one hired to do work for another.
a. 1548. Hall, Chron. Hen. V., 54 b. Every iorneiman of their faction … put all their … diligence to avance forward their sect and part.
1588. Marprel. Epist. (Arb.), 30. Nonresidents with their iourneimen the hedge priests.
1602. Shaks., Ham., III. ii. 37. I haue thought some of Natures Iouerney-men had made men, and not made them well.
a. 1670. Hacket, Abp. Williams, I. (1692), 20. He … attended at them, and acted in them vivâ voce, and did not put off the Work to Journey-men.
1705. Hickeringill, Priest-cr., II. vi. 62. A Lord being too Great to Pray to God himself, when he keeps a Journeyman or Chaplain to do that drudgery for him.
1762–71. H. Walpole, Vertue’s Anecd. Paint. (1786), IV. 237. The colouring was worse … than that of the most errant journeymen to the profession.
1817. (May) Title of Print, A Master Parson and his Journeyman.
3. Astron. More fully, journeyman clock: a secondary clock in an observatory, used generally as an intermediary in the comparison of standard clocks.
1764. Maskelyne, in Phil. Trans., LIV. 373. I fixed up a little clock there, which may be called a journeyman or secondary clock, having a pendulum swinging seconds.
1787. Smeaton, ibid. LXXVII. 330, note. The journeyman clock was generally set to the transit clock on Sunday mornings…. The journeyman will generally agree with the transit clock to 2″ in 24 hours.
1890. J. Service, Sk. Jas. Dunlop, in Thir Notandums, 162. The journeyman employed was compared with a sidereal clock.
4. attrib. and Comb., as journeyman tailor, work; journeyman-like adj. and adv.
1467. in Eng. Gilds (1870), 407. Alle jorneymen straungers comynge to the seid cite.
1615. J. Stephens, Satyr. Ess., 424. Journy-man-like hee travailes from place to place, seeking to be set on worke before he hath learnt his trade.
1657. R. Ligon, Barbadoes (1673), 109. You may hire poor Journy-men Taylors, here in the City.
1764. Low Life (ed. 3), 29. Journeymen Clergymen putting on their best Bands and Cassocks.
1825. W. Cobbett, Rur. Rides (1885), II. 97. A journeyman parson comes and works in three or four churches of a Sunday.
1864. M. Arnold, in Cornh. Mag., Aug., 172. To raise the standard amongst us for what I have called the journeyman-work of literature.
