amanuensis
noun
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The Etymology of Amanuensis
In Latin, the phrase servus a manu translates loosely as "slave with secretarial duties." (The noun manu, meaning "hand," gave us words such as manuscript, which originally referred to a document written or typed by hand.) In the 17th century the second part of this phrase was borrowed into English to create amanuensis, a word for a person who is employed (willingly) to do the important but sometimes menial work of transcribing the words of another. While other quaint words, such as scribe or scrivener, might have similarly described the functions of such a person in the past, these days we're likely to call him or her a secretary or an administrative assistant.
Examples of amanuensis in a Sentence
Sage Mehta, The New Yorker, 7 Oct. 2024
By Hillary Kelly The story goes that John Milton—who went blind in his early 40s—composed 20 lines of Paradise Lost in his mind each evening, and then repeated them aloud the next day to an assortment of amanuenses, among them his three daughters.
—Hillary Kelly, The Atlantic, 10 Aug. 2024
The character in the movie has an amanuensis.
—Susan Morrison, The New Yorker, 5 Sep. 2021
Francesca, one of her former students, works tirelessly as Lydia’s factotum, amanuensis, and personal assistant, in the expectation of becoming her assistant conductor in Berlin.
—Richard Brody, The New Yorker, 12 Oct. 2022
Intermittent presidential advisor and capital-class amanuensis Larry Summers has, in similar terms, endorsed the idea that American workers must give up their labor market gains in order to end inflation.
—Jason Linkins, The New Republic, 6 Aug. 2022
Andy had aided him in his earliest experiments, serving first as something of a guinea-pig-cum-amanuensis.
—Kent Russell, Harper’s Magazine , 25 May 2022
There’s a religious scribe named Nahman of Busk, who functions as Jacob’s amanuensis and whose diary entries depict a man struggling with the idea that enlightenment might not really be all that useful.
—Jake Bittle, The New Republic, 2 Mar. 2022
As much amanuensis as protagonist, Ms Broom weaves her memories and her mother’s testimony into a personal, historical and sociological study of African-American life in New Orleans.
—The Economist, 8 Aug. 2019
Cite this Entry
“Amanuensis.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/amanuensis. Accessed 8 Jul. 2025.
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amanuensis
noun
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