amanuensis
Americannoun
plural
amanuensesnoun
Etymology
Origin of amanuensis
1610–20; < Latin ( servus ) āmanuēnsis, equivalent to ā- a- 4 + manu-, stem of manus hand + -ēnsis -ensis
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Anthony never married, and she considered herself to some degree Stanton’s amanuensis, confiding to an intimate that she felt that her best work had been “making the way clear” for her friend.
From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 27, 2026
She became not only Wiggins’ full-time caregiver but her amanuensis and archivist.
From Los Angeles Times • Aug. 2, 2022
Dazzled by Kubrick, Vitali largely lost interest in acting and instead became Kubrick’s amanuensis, performing unsung tasks on The Shining, Full Metal Jacket and Eyes Wide Shut.
From The Guardian • Dec. 27, 2018
When Plath wasn’t banging on about Hughes’s virility, “his health and hugeness,” she waxed ecstatic about the pleasures of “domesticalia” and of serving as Hughes’s amanuensis and literary agent.
From New York Times • Oct. 23, 2018
“The sextet of Robert Frobisher. He was an amanuensis for my father, when my father was too old, too blind, too weak to hold a pen.”
From "Black Swan Green" by David Mitchell
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
