hackney writer

plural hackney writers

1. obsoleteA writer for hire.

   […] and at this his first entrance on the world he found, as he himself said, no choice but to be a hackney writer or a hackney coachman.

   1910, G. M. Godden, Henry Fielding: A Memoir

   1 more example

   […] he learned, that Justice Gobble, whose father was a tailor, had for some time served as a journeyman hosier in London, where he had picked up some law terms, by conversing with hackney writers and attorneys’ clerks of the lowest order; […]

   1760, Tobias Smollet, The Life and Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves

   Synonyms: penny-a-liner