Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun One who engages in barratry.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In old law, one who buys or sells ecclesiastical preferment; a simonist.
  • noun In Scots law, a judge who takes a bribe.
  • noun One who buys or sells offices of state.
  • noun One who commits barratry; one who, being the master of a ship or one of its officers or seamen, commits any fraud or fraudulent act in the management of the ship or cargo, by which the owner, freighters, or insurers are injured, as by running away with the ship, sinking or deserting her, wilful deviation from the fixed course, or embezzlement of the cargo.
  • noun A quarrelsome, brawling person; a rowdy.
  • noun One who frequently excites others to lawsuits or quarrels; a common mover and maintainer of suits and controversies; an encourager of litigation between other persons: chiefly in the phrase common barrator. See barratry, 4.
  • noun Also spelled barrater, and, especially in the last sense, barretor.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun One guilty of barratry.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun One who is guilty of barratry.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun someone guilty of barratry

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English baratour, from Old French barateour, swindler, from barater, to cheat, perhaps from Vulgar Latin *prattāre, from Greek prāttein, to do.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Old English baratour, Old French barateor deceiver, from Old French barater, bareter, to deceive, cheat, barter. See barter (intransitive verb).

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