subs. (old colloquial).—1. A knave; a swindler: an ancient and still general reproach. Whence ATTORNEYDOM and ATTORNEYISM (in contempt or abuse).
1732. POPE, Moral Essays, III. 274. Vile ATTORNIES, now an useless race.
c. 1784. JOHNSON [BOSWELL, Life, I. 385]. Johnson observed that ‘he did not care to speak ill of any man behind his back, but he believed the gentleman was an ATTORNEY.’
1837. CARLYLE, The French Revolution, III. vii. 5. ATTORNIES and Law-Beagles which hunt ravenous on this Earth. Ibid., 258. Vanish, then, thou rat-eyed Incarnation of ATTORNEYISM. Ibid. (1864), Fred. the Great, IV. 2. Instinctively abhorrent of ATTORNEYISM and the swindler element.
1881. Standard, 22 Aug., 5. 2. The narrow and captious argument of ATTORNEYDOM.
1882. Society, 7 Oct., 16. 2. A strong element of what Mr. John Bright has been pleased to call ATTORNEYDOM.
1884. The Saturday Review, 28 June, 835. 2. The peculiarity, however, of that kind of cleverness which … is called ATTORNEYISM, is that it frequently overreaches itself.
2. (common).—A drumstick of goose, or turkey, grilled and devilled: cf. DEVIL.
1828. G. GRIFFIN, The Collegians, xiii. ‘I love a plain beef steak before a grilled ATTORNEY.’
