From Middle English lawier, lawyer, lawer, equivalent to law + -yer.

• (RP) IPA: /ˈlɔːjə(ɹ)/, /ˈlɔɪ.ə(ɹ)/
• (America, Northern and Western) IPA: /ˈlɔɪ.ɚ/
• (America, Southern) IPA: /ˈlɔ.jɚ/

lawyer (plural lawyers)

1. A professional person with a graduate law degree that qualifies for legal work (such as Juris Doctor)
2. A professional person qualified (as by a law degree or bar exam) and authorized to practice law as an attorney-at-law, solicitor, advocate, barrister or equivalent, i.e. represent parties in lawsuits or trials and give legal advice.
   • 1907 August, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, chapter II, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC ↗:

     His forefathers had been, as a rule, professional men—physicians and lawyers; his grandfather died under the walls of Chapultepec Castle while twisting a tourniquet for a cursing dragoon; an uncle remained indefinitely at Malvern Hill; […].

   A lawyer's time and advice are his stock in trade. - aphorism often credited to Abraham Lincoln, but without attestation

3. (by extension) A legal layman who argues points of law.
4. (UK, colloquial) The burbot.
5. (UK, dialect) The stem of a bramble.
6. Any of various plants that have hooked thorns.
   1. A relative of the raspberry found in Australia and New Zealand, Rubus australis
   2. Various species of Calamus, including Calamus australis, Calamus muelleri, Calamus obstruens, Calamus vitiensis, Calamus warburgii, and Calamus moti.
   3. A woody climbing rainforest vine, Flagellaria indica.

• advocate
• attorney
• counselor

• French: juriste, homme de loi, femme de loi, avocat (informal), avocate (informal)
• German: Rechtsanwalt, Rechtsanwältin, Anwalt, Anwältin
• Italian: avvocato, avvocatessa, legale
• Portuguese: advogado, advogada
• Russian: юри́ст
• Spanish: abogado, abogada, letrado (formal), notario

• Italian: giurista

lawyer (lawyers, present participle lawyering; simple past and past participle lawyered)

1. (informal, intransitive) To practice law.
2. (intransitive) To perform, or attempt to perform, the work of a lawyer.
3. (intransitive) To make legalistic arguments.
4. (informal, transitive) To barrage (a person) with questions in order to get them to admit something.

   You've been lawyered!

• lawyer up

1. A male given name