noverintn.

1589 T. Nashe To Students in R. Greene Menaphon Epist. sig. **3 It is a common practise now a daies amongst a sort of shifting companions..to leaue the trade of Nouerint whereto they were borne, and busie themselues with the indeuors of Art.

1859 Atlantic Monthly July 100/2 By the trade of Noverint he meant that of an attorney.

1880 Appletons' Jrnl. July 22/1 Whether at any stage in his career, either in Stratford or London, he was an attorney's clerk, hard 'prentice at the trade of ‘noverint’.scrivener.

1897 Atlantic Monthly Nov. 646/1 Nash..makes sneering mention of Shakespeare as a man who had left the ‘trade of Noverint,’..to try his hand at tragedy. The ‘trade of Noverint’ was a slang expression for the business of attorney.

1592 Greenes Groats-worth of Witte sig. B^v Yet was not the father altogether vnlettered, for he had good experience in a Nouerint.

1594 T. Nashe Terrors of Night Ep. Ded., in Wks. (1883–5) III. 214 Some vnskilfull pen-man or Nouerint-maker.

1611 ‘G. Vadianus’ in T. Coryate Crudities sig. h^v Vpon a nouerint vniuersi, he recouered a hundred Marks.

1627 R. Sanderson Ten Serm. 441 Why doth hee not in his Bills, and Bonds, and Noverints, make it knowne to all men by those presents that he is an Vsurer?

1634 J. Ford Chron. Hist. Perkin Warbeck ii. sig. E2 As no Indenture, but has its counterpawne; no Noverint but his Condition, or Defeysance [etc.].

a1660 N. Rogers Rich Fool (1662) 402 God sets a Noverint universi, upon the Worlds Wizzards, for the veriest Fools.

1699 J. Harris Love's Lottery i. ii. 7 Several sorts of Nonparelio Italian Gloves..they are seam'd with Indentures, by the Needle-work of Mortgage, and both topp'd and stiffn'd with a Noverint Universi.

1714 T. Parkyns Inn-play (ed. 2) 62 To make these Wrestling Articles yet more stronger they may be with a Noverint Universi.

1748 S. Richardson Clarissa V. xxiii. 203 What a glorious time would the Lawyers have, on the one hand, with their Noverint universi's, and suits commenceable on restitution of goods and chattels.

1594 J. Lyly Mother Bombie v. iii. sig. I3 With such a Nouerint as cheap side can shew none such.

1619 Two Wise Men & All Rest Fooles i. i. 10 He recouer'd not; nor got any thing from the scriuener. But was not this a wrangle, and a shamefull cavill? yea and with a Noverint man himselfe which thou deniest?

1629 J. Shirley Wedding iii. i. 396 Sirra Nouerint.., ile set one a top of Paules to watch thee.

1740 D. Bellamy Perjur'd Devotee iv. 55 I'll go fetch old Noverint the Scrivener, that we may sign and seal; and then my Chaplain shall perform the remaining Part of the Ceremony.

1851 Amer. Whig Rev. Dec. 500/2 He would not have fixed his interpretation of the by-name Noverint on the lowest branch of the legal profession to which it was applicable—that of a scrivener.

1880 Appletons' Jrnl. July 22/1 Mr. Fullom seems to think that Nash meant, by his well-known slur, not that Shakespeare was a ‘noverint’, but that the young ‘noverints’ of the time were ‘Shakespeares’—that is to say, that they scribbled out of hand, for the stage.

1955 Shakespeare Q. 6 455 His argument begins with references in prose-pamphlets to dramatists who are described as noverints, i.e. law-clerks.