ATTORNEY

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does attorney mean? 

• ATTORNEY (noun)
  The noun ATTORNEY has 1 sense:

1. a professional person authorized to practice law; conducts lawsuits or gives legal advice

  Familiarity information: ATTORNEY used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• ATTORNEY (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A professional person authorized to practice law; conducts lawsuits or gives legal advice

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

attorney; lawyer

Hypernyms ("attorney" is a kind of...):

professional; professional person (a person engaged in one of the learned professions)

Domain category:

jurisprudence; law (the collection of rules imposed by authority)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "attorney"):

ambulance chaser (an unethical lawyer who incites accident victims to sue)

trial attorney; trial lawyer (a lawyer who specializes in defending clients before a court of law)

solicitor (a British lawyer who gives legal advice and prepares legal documents)

referee (an attorney appointed by a court to investigate and report on a case)

public defender (a lawyer who represents indigent defendants at public expense)

prosecuting attorney; prosecuting officer; prosecutor; public prosecutor (a government official who conducts criminal prosecutions on behalf of the state)

divorce lawyer (a lawyer specializing in actions for divorce or annulment)

defense attorney; defense lawyer (the lawyer representing the defendant)

conveyancer (a lawyer who specializes in the business of conveying properties)

barrister (a British or Canadian lawyer who speaks in the higher courts of law on behalf of either the defense or prosecution)

advocate; counsel; counsellor; counselor; counselor-at-law; pleader (a lawyer who pleads cases in court)

Instance hyponyms:

Abul-Walid Mohammed ibn-Ahmad Ibn-Mohammed ibn-Roshd; Averroes; ibn-Roshd (Arabian philosopher born in Spain; wrote detailed commentaries on Aristotle that were admired by the Schoolmen (1126-1198))

Boy Orator of the Platte; Bryan; Great Commoner; William Jennings Bryan (United States lawyer and politician who advocated free silver and prosecuted John Scopes (1925) for teaching evolution in a Tennessee high school (1860-1925))

Clarence Darrow; Clarence Seward Darrow; Darrow (United States lawyer famous for his defense of lost causes (1857-1938))

Arthur Garfield Hays; Hays (United States lawyer involved in several famous court trials (1881-1954))

Hays; Will Hays; William Harrison Hays (United States lawyer and politician who formulated a production code that prescribed the moral content of United States films from 1930 to 1966 (1879-1954))

Hoover; J. Edgar Hoover; John Edgar Hoover (United States lawyer who was director of the FBI for 48 years (1895-1972))

Francis Scott Key; Key (United States lawyer and poet who wrote a poem after witnessing the British attack on Baltimore during the War of 1812; the poem was later set to music and entitled 'The Star-Spangled Banner' (1779-1843))

Abraham Lincoln; Lincoln; President Abraham Lincoln; President Lincoln (16th President of the United States; saved the Union during the American Civil War and emancipated the slaves; was assassinated by Booth (1809-1865))

Holonyms ("attorney" is a member of...):

attorney-client relation; lawyer-client relation (the responsibility of a lawyer to act in the best interests of the client)

Derivation:

attorneyship (the position of attorney)

 Context examples 

A durable power of attorney for health care is a document that names your health care proxy.

(Advance Directives, NIH: National Cancer Institute)

Her father had been an attorney in Meryton, and had left her four thousand pounds.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

A type of power of attorney.

(DPA, NCI Dictionary)

A durable power of attorney remains in effect until the person who grants it dies or cancels it.

(Durable power of attorney, NCI Dictionary)

“Why, he is a sort of monkish attorney,” replied Steerforth.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Emma guessed him to be the drudge of some attorney, and too stupid to rise.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

Do your research, read news media, and consult with your attorney and accountant, along with business partners and experts, and you will be ready to come to the right decision.

(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)

This brief account of the family is intended to supersede the necessity of a long and minute detail from Mrs. Thorpe herself, of her past adventures and sufferings, which might otherwise be expected to occupy the three or four following chapters; in which the worthlessness of lords and attorneys might be set forth, and conversations, which had passed twenty years before, be minutely repeated.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

Tom Bertram had of late spent so little of his time at home that he could be only nominally missed; and Lady Bertram was soon astonished to find how very well they did even without his father, how well Edmund could supply his place in carving, talking to the steward, writing to the attorney, settling with the servants, and equally saving her from all possible fatigue or exertion in every particular but that of directing her letters.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

I am not in the least provoked at the sight of a lawyer, a pickpocket, a colonel, a fool, a lord, a gamester, a politician, a whoremonger, a physician, an evidence, a suborner, an attorney, a traitor, or the like; this is all according to the due course of things: but when I behold a lump of deformity and diseases, both in body and mind, smitten with pride, it immediately breaks all the measures of my patience; neither shall I be ever able to comprehend how such an animal, and such a vice, could tally together.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)