scrivenery

plural scriveneries · alternative scrivenry

1. uncountableThe practice or work of a scrivener.

   There is a mystery involved. I cannot solve it, but it is simple enough to state. Why are all important or momentous things involving scrivenery always done on the back of an old envelope?

   1977, Flann O'Brien, The Hair of the Dogma: A Further Selection From 'Cruiskeen Lawn', London […]: Paladin Grafton Books, published 1989, →ISBN, page 148

   3 more examples

   And yet we have notable penmen at head-quarters, who are at their vocation night and day, and who injure their temper and manners by incessant scrivenery, the results of which are buried in the pigeon-holes of Whitehall, never to be seen even in the lively pages of a blue-book.

   1856, W[illiam] H[oward] Russell, The War; From the Death of Lord Raglan to the Evacuation of the Crimea, London: G. Routledge & Co., page 247

   So the Vicar's pen was applied, but before he had time to trace the first letter of his name, Rachel Lake resolutely snatched the thick, bluish sheet of scrivenery, before him, and tore it across and across, with the quickness of terror, and in fewer seconds than one could fancy, it lay about the floor and grate in pieces little bigger than dominoes.

   1864, J[oseph] Sheridan Le Fanu, “In which Lake under the Trees of Brandon, and I in My Chamber, Smoke Our Nocturnal Cigars”, in Wylder’s Hand. […], New York, N.Y.: Carleton, […], published 1865, →OCLC, page 360

   Parlour games (dominos, halma, tiddledywinks, spilikins, cup and ball, nap, spoil five, bezique, twentyfive, beggar my neighbour, draughts, chess or backgammon): embroidery, darning or knitting for the policeaided clothing society: musical duets, mandoline and guitar, piano and flute, guitar and piano: legal scrivenery or envelope addressing: […]

   1922 February 2, James Joyce, “[Episode 17: Ithaca]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company […], →OCLC, part III [Nostos], page 638

2. countablehistoricalA place where scriveners work; a scriptorium.

   When I returned, I did need share lodgings with my brother and there set up a scrivenery just to pay the rent.

   2016, Michelle Butler Hallett, This Marlowe, Fredericton, N.B.: Goose Lane Editions, →ISBN, page 78

   2 more examples

   At the bottom of folio 109 there is an entry which reads, The Law at Twickenham for mery tales. This is, apparently, a reference to a scrivenery and staff of skilled penmen maintained at Twickenham by Francis [Bacon] and his brother Anthony Bacon.

   1906, Harold Bayley, The Shakespeare Symphony; an Introduction to the Ethics of the Elizabethan Drama, London: Chapman and Hall Ltd., page 242

   Legal papers were not the most interesting of jobs, but at least he could do the work at home and keep an eye on his mother. And with Mai's new connections to draw on, he might even aspire to a post in one of the new scriveneries attached to the Inns of Court.

   2012, Anne Lyle, The Alchemist of Souls, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire: Angry Robot, →ISBN, page 93