clerk

See also: Clerk

English

Etymology

From Middle English clerc, from Old English clerc, from Late Latin clēricus (“priest, clergyman, cleric”, also generally “learned man, clerk”), from Ancient Greek κληρικός (klērikós, “of the clergy”, adj. in church jargon), from κλῆρος (klêros, “lot, inheritance”, originally “shard used in casting lots”). Doublet of cleric.

Pronunciation

(Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /klɑːk/
(General American) enPR: klerk, IPA^(key): /klɝk/
Audio (GA) (file)
(General Australian) IPA^(key): /klɐːk/, /klɜːk/
Homophone: Clark (some accents)
Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)k, -ɑː(ɹ)k

Noun

clerk (plural clerks)

One who occupationally provides assistance by working with records, accounts, letters, etc.; an office worker.
- 1879, W[illiam] S[chwenck] Gilbert; Arthur Sullivan, composer, “When I Was a Lad”, in H.M.S. Pinafore; […], San Francisco: Bacon & Company, […], OCLC 181408105, page 10:
  As office boy I made such a mark
  That they gave me the post of a junior clerk.
- 1892, Walter Besant, “Prologue: Who is Edmund Gray?”, in The Ivory Gate […], New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], OCLC 16832619:
  Thus, when he drew up instructions in lawyer language, he expressed the important words by an initial, a medial, or a final consonant, and made scratches for all the words between; his clerks, however, understood him very well.
1. A salesclerk; a person who serves customers in a store or market.
2. A law clerk.
3. An employee at a hotel who deals with guests.
(Quakerism) A facilitator of a Quaker meeting for business affairs.
(archaic) In the Church of England, the layman that assists in the church service, especially in reading the responses (also called parish clerk).
- 1595 December 9 (first known performance), William Shakespeare, “The life and death of King Richard the Second”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act 4, scene 1]:
  God save the King! Will no man say, amen? / Am I both priest and clerk? Well then, amen.
(dated) A cleric or clergyman (the legal title for clergy of the Church of England is "Clerk in Holy Orders", still used in legal documents and cherished by some of their number).
(obsolete) A scholar.
- 13th century, Traditional carol,
  And all was for an appel, an appel that he toke/As clerkès finden written in their boke.

Synonyms

register
registrar
scribe
secretary

Derived terms

academical clerk
articled clerk
articling clerk
barber's clerk
check clerk
clerk-ale
clerk of the pipe
clerkship
courtesy clerk
filing clerk (file clerk)
law clerk
lay clerk
mail clerk
parish clerk
pox doctor's clerk
recording clerk
Saint Nicholas' clerk
sales clerk
sheriff clerk
town clerk (town-clerk)
vestry clerk

Related terms

clergy
clergyman
cleric
clerical

Translations

cleric or clergyman

Catalan: clergue (ca) m
Galician: crego m
Portuguese: clérigo (pt) m
Spanish: clérigo (es) m

one working with records etc.

Afrikaans: klerk
Armenian: կլերկ (hy) (klerk), գրասենյակային ծառայող (grasenyakayin caṙayoł), գրագիր (hy) (gragir)
Bulgarian: чиновник (bg) m (činovnik)
Burmese: စာရေး (my) (care:)
Catalan: oficinista m or f
Chechen: йохкархо (joxkarxo)
Chichewa: kalaliki
Chinese:
Mandarin: 書記／书记 (zh) (shūji), 店員／店员 (zh) (diànyuán), 營業員／营业员 (zh) (yíngyèyuán)
Czech: úředník (cs)
Danish: kontorassistent m, kontorfunktionær m, ekspedient (da) m, ekspeditrice (da) m
Dutch: klerk (nl) m, bediende (nl) m
Esperanto: komizo, oficisto, aktisto
Finnish: konttoristi (fi), virkailija (fi)
French: greffier (fr) m
German: Büroangestellte m, Angestellte (de) m, Buchhalter (de) m, Bürokaufmann m, Bürokauffrau f, Gerichtsschreiber m, Schreiber (de) m
Greek: please add this translation if you can
Ancient: γραμματεύς m (grammateús)
Hebrew: פקיד‎ (he) m (pakid), פקידה‎ f (pkida)
Hindi: क्लर्क (hi) m (klark), बाबू (hi) m (bābū)
Hungarian: hivatalnok (hu), irodai dolgozó
Icelandic: skrifstofumaður m
Ido: klerko (io)
Irish: cléireach m
Italian: ^{(please verify)} impiegato (it) m
Japanese: 事務員 (ja) (じむいん, jimuin), 店員 (ja) (てんいん, ten'in), 書記 (ja) (しょき, shoki)
Korean: 사무원 (ko) (samuwon), 서기 (ko) (seogi)
Latin: scrība m
Luo: karan
Macedonian: слу́жбеник m (slúžbenik), чи́новник m (čínovnik)
Malay: kerani
Maori: karaka (mi)
Norman: clèrc m, clèrcot m
Norwegian: kontorist, ekspeditør (no)
Persian: منشی‎ (fa) (monši), سکرتر‎ (fa) (sekreter)
Portuguese: escriturário (pt) m, escrevente (pt) m or f, secretário (pt) m, empregado de escritório m
Romanian: secretar (ro) m, birocrat (ro) m, funcționar (ro) m
Russian: клерк (ru) m (klerk), чино́вник (ru) m (činóvnik), слу́жащий (ru) m (slúžaščij)
Scottish Gaelic: clèireach m
Serbo-Croatian: pisar (sh) m, beležnik (sh) m, pisarica (sh) f, beležnica (sh) f, bilježnik (sh) m, bilježnica (sh) f
Slovene: uradnik (sl) m, uradnica f, pisarniški uslužbenec m, pisarniška uslužbenka f
Sotho: tlelereke
Spanish: oficinista m or f, secretario (es) m, escribiente (es) m or f, auxiliar administrativo m
Swahili: karani (sw)
Swedish: tjänsteman (sv) c
Thai: เสมียน (th) (sà-mǐian)
Turkish: yazman (tr), kâtip (tr)
Walloon: comis (wa) m

Verb

clerk (third-person singular simple present clerks, present participle clerking, simple past and past participle clerked)

To act as a clerk, to perform the duties or functions of a clerk
- 1934, George Orwell, chapter 1, in Burmese Days‎:
  […] for three years he had worked in the stinking labyrinth of the Mandalay bazaars, clerking for the rice merchants and sometimes stealing.
- 1956, Jean Stafford, "A Reading Problem" in The Collected Stories of Jean Stafford, New York: E.P. Dutton, 1984, p. 332,
  In the winter, they lived in a town called Hoxie, Arkansas, where Evangelist Gerlash clerked in the Buttorf drugstore and preached and baptized on the side.
The law school graduate clerked for the supreme court judge for the summer.