clerk

Pluralclerks

Formsclerks, clerking, clerked

1. 1
   nouncountable

   A person employed to keep records, manage accounts, handle correspondence, and perform similar office work.

   She spent ten years as a payroll clerk before moving into management.

   The county hired two new clerks to process a backlog of records.

   Similaradministrator

   Note

   The office sense is the end of a long road: Old English clerc, from Late Latin clēricus, "priest" but also "learned man", and ultimately from Greek klēros, a lot cast for an inheritance. A clerk was first a churchman, as in the clergyman sense, then a person of letters, and finally the keeper of records. Gilbert's "When I Was a Lad" (1879) shows it as a rung on a career ladder: office boy first, then junior clerk.

2. 2
   nouncountable

   A person who serves customers in a store or market; a salesclerk.

   The clerk rang up my groceries and bagged them quickly.

   Convenience store clerks often work alone on overnight shifts.

   Similarcashier, salesperson, assistant, attendant

3. 3
   nouncountable

   An assistant to a judge or lawyer who performs legal research, drafts documents, and helps prepare cases.

   Supreme Court justices typically hire four clerks each year.

   He spent a year as a clerk at the federal courthouse before joining a firm.

4. 4
   nouncountable

   A hotel employee who deals with guests, typically handling check-in, check-out, and requests at the front desk.

   The desk clerk upgraded our room after a mix-up with the reservation.

   Night clerks at small hotels often handle security and luggage as well.

   Similarreceptionist

5. 5
   verbintransitive

   To work as a clerk, for example in a shop or office or as an assistant to a judge.

   He clerked in his father's shop before opening his own.

   Many law students clerk for judges during the summer.

   Note

   An intransitive verb that names the work by its setting. One clerks for an employer, whether a judge or, in Orwell's Burmese Days (1934), the rice merchants. One clerks in a place, such as a jewelry store or a drugstore. With a judge, it means serving as a law clerk. The medical verb behaves differently, taking the patient as its direct object.

6. 6
   nouncountable

   In a legislature or one of its chambers, the senior official who advises on law and usually also keeps the record of each sitting.

   The clerk advised the speaker that the amendment was out of order.

   Clerks of both chambers met to agree on the bill's final official text.

7. 7
   nouncountable

   A member who facilitates a Quaker meeting for business affairs, helping the group reach a shared decision.

   The clerk sensed the meeting was not yet in unity and set the question aside.

   Friends appointed a new clerk at their annual business meeting.

   Note

   Quaker usage gives the title a role quite unlike a chair's. Rather than putting motions to a vote, the clerk listens for the point where the gathering has come into unity, names it, and records it as a minute. Phrases such as "in unity" and "the sense of the meeting" belong to this vocabulary, and the clerk is appointed by the Friends themselves.

8. 8
   verbtransitive

   To gather the details of a newly admitted patient at the first assessment, mainly by taking a full history and examining them.

   Every new admission must be clerked before the attending physician's review.

   Interns clerk each new patient and present the case at morning rounds.

   Note

   A ward word from clinical training, and transitive: doctors clerk patients, and a case is clerked. The verbal noun is countable, so students "present your clerkings" to whoever leads the round. It belongs to the vocabulary of examinations, registrars and consultants. A clerking is the doctor's own structured first workup of the patient, not paperwork handed to an administrator.

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