truchman

English

Alternative forms

• trouchman, truceman, truch-man, trudgeman

Etymology

From mediaeval Latin turchemannus or French trucheman, from Arabic تُرْجُمَان (turjumān). Doublet of dragoman.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈtɹʌt͡ʃmən/

• Audio (Southern England)

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Noun

truchman (plural truchmen)

1. (archaic) An interpreter.
   • 1604, Edward Grimston (translator), The Natural and Moral History of the Indies by José de Acosta (1590), edited by Clements Markham, London: Hakluyt Society, 1853, Volume II, Book 7, Chapter 25, p. 519,^[1]

     He laboured to make them all understand this discourse, using his interpreters and truchmen. The which being understoode by the King and the other Mexicane Lords, they were wonderfully well satisfied, and shewed great signes of love to Cortes and his company.

   • 1640, William Habington, The Queen of Arragon, Act II, Scene 1, in A Selection of Collection of Old Plays, Volume 9, London: Septimus Prowett, 1825,^[2]

     […] And now I have with labour

     Attain’d thy language, I’ll thy truchman be.

     Interpret for thee to those smaller souls,

     Who wonder when they understand not: souls!

   • 1716, William Davenant, “The Philosopher’s Disquisition directed to the Dying Christian” stanza 31 in John Dryden, editor, Miscellany Poems, London: Jacob Tonson, Volume 6, p. 289,^[3]

     Since justly Clients pay that Judge an awe,

     Who Law’s lost Sense interprets and restores;

     (Yet Judges are no more above the Law

     Then Truchmen are above Ambassadors.)

   • 1885, Richard Burton, transl., The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night‎^[4], volume I, page 100:

     An I hire a truchman to tell my tale
     The lover’s plaint is not told for pay: