legist

From Middle French légiste, from Medieval Latin lēgista, from Latin lex (“law”). Compare legal.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈliːdʒɪst/

legist (plural legists)

1. One skilled in the law.
   • 1484, William Caxton (translator), Aesop’s Fables, “The Wulf whiche made a fart” in The Fables of Aesop as first printed by William Caxton in 1484, edited by Joseph Jacobs, London: David Nutt, 1889, Volume II, p. 162,

     Item my fader was no legist ne never knew the lawes

     ne also man of Justyce

     and to gyve sentence of a plee

     I wold entremete me

     and fayned my self grete Justycer

     but I knewe neyther

     a

     ne

     b

   • 1933, H. G. Wells, The Shape of Things to Come, Book 3, Chapter 8,

     There were a number of lawyers of the older type, men in sharp contrast and antagonism to the younger legists of the new American school.

2. A writer on law, a legislator, a lawmaker
   • 2002, Colin Jones, The Great Nation, Penguin 2003, p. 3:

     ‘King and kingdom,’ concurred d'Aguesseau, wisest of wise eighteenth-century legists, ‘form a single entity.’

• gilets, legits