barrator

plural barrators · alternative barrater · alternative barretor

1. One who is guilty of barratry, vexing others with frequent and often groundless lawsuits; a brangler and pettifogger.

   But by Hawk. P. C. bk. 1, c. 21, if such suits are merely groundless, and brought only with a design to oppress the defendants, such a man may as properly be called a barrator as if he had stirred up others to bring them.

   1860, Matthew Bacon, A New Abridgement of the Law, volume 2, page 75

2. One who abuses their office by dealing fraudulently.
   1. obsoleteOne who buys or sells political or ecclesiastic offices.
   2. A judge who accepts bribes.
   3. maritimeA ship's master who commits gross fraud or barratry.
3. archaicA quarrelsome person, one who fights, a bully.

   I care not though men call me impudent, / Smooth-tongu'd, audacious, petulant, abhominable, / Forger of vvords and lie, contentious Barretour, / Old, vvinding, bragging, teſty, crafty fox.

   1655, Thomas Stanley, “The Clouds of Aristophanes. Added (not as a Comicall Divertisement for the Reader, who can Expect Little in that Kind from a Subject so Antient, and Particular, but) as a Necessary Supplement to the Life of Socrates”, in The History of Philosophy. […], volume I, London: […] Humphrey Moseley, and Thomas Dring, […], →OCLC, 3rd part (Containing the Socratick Philosophers), Act I, scene iii, page 76