hackney writer

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English

Noun

hackney writer (plural hackney writers)

  1. (obsolete) A writer for hire.
    Synonym: penny-a-liner
    • 1760, Tobias Smollet, The Life and Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves:
      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;
    • 1910, G. M. Godden, Henry Fielding: A Memoir‎:
      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.

Further reading

  • (1788) “Hackney writer”, in A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, 2nd edition, London: S. Hooper, , →OCLC.
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