WRITE
Write, v. i.
1. To form characters, letters, or figures, as representative of sounds or ideas; to express words and sentences by written signs. Chaucer. So it stead you, I will write, Please you command. Shak.
2. To be regularly employed or occupied in writing, copying, or accounting; to act as clerk or amanuensis; as, he writes in one of the public offices.
3. To frame or combine ideas, and express them in written words; to play the author; to recite or relate in books; to compose. They can write up to the dignity and character of the authors. Felton.
4. To compose or send letters. He wrote for all the Jews that went out of his realm up into Jewry concerning their freedom. 1 Esdras iv. 49.
WRITER
Writ"er, n. Etym: [AS. writere.]
1. One who writes, or has written; a scribe; a clerk. They [came] that handle the pen of the writer. Judg. v. 14. My tongue is the pen of a ready writer. Ps. xlv. 1.
2. One who is engaged in literary composition as a profession; an author; as, a writer of novels. This pitch, as ancient writers do report, doth defile. Shak.
3. A clerk of a certain rank in the service of the late East India Company, who, after serving a certain number of years, became a factor. Writer of the tallies (Eng. Law), an officer of the exchequer of England, who acted as clerk to the auditor of the receipt, and wrote the accounts upon the tallies from the tellers' bills. The use of tallies in the exchequer has been abolished. Wharton (Law. Dict.) — Writer's cramp, palsy, or spasm (Med.), a painful spasmodic affection of the muscles of the fingers, brought on by excessive use, as in writing, violin playing, telegraphing, etc. Called also scrivener's palsy. — Writer to the signet. See under Signet.
WRITERSHIP
Writ"er*ship, n.