penman

penman

See also: Penman

English

Etymology

pen +‎ -man

Noun

penman (plural penmen)

1. A scribe, or person who copies texts.
2. A person with writing skills; a journalist or other author.
   • 1845, B[enjamin] Disraeli, Sybil; or The Two Nations. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Henry Colburn, […], OCLC 1204533024:

     Well, I often wish I were a penman; but I never could do it. I’ll read any day as long as you like, but that writing, I could never manage.

   • 1848, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter XVI, in The Book of Snobs‎:

     You have a very bad opinion indeed of the present state of literature and of literary men, if you fancy that any one of us would hesitate to stick a knife into his neighbour penman, if the latter's death could do the State any service.

   • 1871–1872, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], chapter LXIV, in Middlemarch […], volume (please specify |volume=I to IV), Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, OCLC 948783829, book (please specify |book=I to VIII):

     But there had been total silence. The Captain evidently was not a great penman, and Rosamond reflected that the sisters might have been abroad.

3. (slang) A forger.
   • 1962, H. L. Mencken, The American Language, supplement 2, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, OCLC 1028039144, page 669:

     Forgers, counterfeiters (penmen) and other such intellectuals have a certain standing in the underworld and even pickpockets are respected more or less as the masters of a difficult art, but they do not rank with the princes of the big con […]

Coordinate terms

• penwoman

Derived terms

• penmanship

Translations

journalist or other author

Bulgarian: писател (bg) m (pisatel) Swedish: skribent (sv) c, skriftställare (sv) c

Anagrams

• Nepman, pan men, panmen