barrators

Noun

barrator (plural barrators)

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. (obsolete) One who buys or sells political or ecclesiastic offices.
3. A judge who accepts bribes.
4. A ship's master who commits gross fraud or barratry.
5. (archaic) A 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...