hackney writer

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^[1]:

     […] 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

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