magistrate

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English magistrat,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Latin magistrātus (“magistracy; a magistrate”),^[5][6][7][8] perhaps through Old French magistrat.^[9][3][10] The Latin noun first meant a magisterial rank or office and then the person holding it.^[5][9][10] It is formed from magister (“master, chief”) with the suffix -ātus,^[5][6][8] or, as Barnhart and Etymonline put it, from magistrō (“to serve as a magistrate, rule”).^[9][10] The Latin magister is also the source of master and mister,^[11][4] and the American Heritage Dictionary traces it to Proto-Indo-European *meǵh₂- (“great”).^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The office or dignity of a magistrate: about 1380, in Chaucer's translation of Boethius.^[9][5] The sense "a civil official who administers the laws" follows in 1384, in the Wycliffite Bible, for the magistrates of the people called together by Pilate.^[2][9][5]

Semantic evolution

The sense "magistracy" died out at the end of the 16th century.^[5][7] From 1594 a magistrate was also a civil officer with local judicial power, a justice of the peace,^[5][8] and Etymonline notes that from the late 17th century the word often meant such a justice or another minor official with criminal jurisdiction.^[10] Johnson (1755) defined it as a person invested with public authority, a governor, an executor of the laws.^[12] In Scottish slang a Glasgow magistrate, or simply magistrate, was a herring, from about 1772.^[5][13] In New Zealand the word was the former title of a district court judge.^[14]

Timeline

• c. 1380 – the office of a magistrate (obsolete by 1596).^[9][5]
• 1384 – a civil officer administering the laws.^[9][5][2]
• 1594 – a civil officer with local judicial power; a justice of the peace.^[5]
• 1623 – verb, to domineer (obsolete).^[5]
• c. 1772 – in Scottish slang, a herring.^[5]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. A public official responsible for administering the law.
2. A justice of the peace, or a judge presiding over a magistrates' court that hears minor cases: She appeared before the magistrates on a speeding charge.
3. The head of the executive of a state, as in chief magistrate.
4. (New Zealand, historical) A district court judge.
5. (Scotland, slang) A herring.

Word family

• magistratical
• magistrateship
• magistracy

Related words

• master
• mister
• magisterial

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
10. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
11. ^ Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
13. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
14. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins