Word.ws English Dictionary

barretry

barretry is the archaic form of barratry.

Meaning of barratry

Noun

barratry (countable and uncountable, plural barratries)

  1. The act of persistently instigating lawsuits, often groundless ones.
    • [Deacon Mushrat to Pogo:] The Machiavellian barratry of a pettifogging public has maundered into do-nothingism.1959 April 24, Walt Kelly, Pogo, comic strip, →ISBN, page 35
  2. The sale or purchase of religious or political positions of power.
  3. Unlawful or fraudulent acts by the crew of a vessel, harming the vessel's owner.

Forms of barretry

pluralbarretries

Questions about barretry

What is barretry the archaic form of?
Barretry is the archaic form of barratry.

Words near barretry in the dictionary

  1. barreth
  2. Barreto
  3. barretor
  4. barretors
  5. barretries
  6. barretry
  7. barrets
  8. Barrett
  9. Barrett's esophagus
  10. Barrett's oesophagus
  11. Barretta

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: barretry (page history and authors); barratry (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “barretry.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/barretry. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.