proc top tom a (proktoptoma)

[NL., proctor proctor (prok'tor), n. [Early mod. E. also proc ter, proc tour; 2. Specifically, a person employed to manage another's cause in a court of civil or ecclesiastical law, as in the court of admiralty or a spiritual court. Proctors discharged duties similar to those of solicitors and attorneys in other courts. The term is also used in some American courts for practitioners performing functions in admiralty and in probate cor responding to those of attorneys at law. "What is a proctor , Steer forth?" said I. "Why, he is a sort of monkish attorney," replied Steer forth. "He is to some faded courts held in Doctors' Commons - a lazy old nook near St. Paul's Churchyard - what solicitors are to the courts of law and equity. Dickens, David Copper field, xxiii. During the whole of Stafford's primacy the pope filled up the sees by provision, the council nominated their candidates; at Rome the proctors of the parties contrived a compromise. Stubbs , Const. Hist., § 386. 3. One of the representatives of the clergy in the Convocations of the two provinces of Canterbury and York in the Church of England. They are elected by the cathedral chapters and the clergy of a diocese or an archdeaconry. The clerical proctors were originally summoned to complete the representation of the spiritual estate, with an especial view to the taxation of spiritual property; and in that summons they had standing-ground from which they might have secured a permanent position in the legislature. By adhering to their ecclesiastical organisation in the convocations they lost their opportunity, and, almost as soon as it was offered them, chance of becoming an active part of parliament. their Stubbs , Const. Hist., § 432. 4. An official in a university or college whose function it is to see that good order is kept. In the universities of Oxford and Cambridge the proctors are two officers chosen from among the masters of arts. It is the Proctors ' duty to look after the busine of the University, to be a e ors of the Chancellor or Vice Chancellor in the causes heard in the University, to count the votes in the Houses of Convocation and Congregation, and to exact fines and other penalties for breaches of University discipline among Undergraduates. Dickens, Dict. Oxford, p. 95. We, unworthier, told Of college: he had climb'd acro the spikes, And he had breath'd the Proctor's dogs. Tennyson, Prince , Prol. 5. A keeper of a spital-house; a liar. Harman, Caveat for Cursetors, p. 115.-6†. One who collected alms for lepers or others unable to beg in person. [Cant.] According to Kennett, beggars of any kind were called proctors. The Fraternitye of Vacabondes, 1575, has the following notice:- " Proc tour is he that wil tary long, and bring a lye, when his maister sendeth him on his errand." Hall i well . Proctors' dogs, proctors' men, proctors' servants. Same as bulldog , 3. proctor (prok'tor), v . t . [ proctor , n .] 1. To manage as an attorney or pleader. I cannot proctor my own cause so well To make it clear. War burton , On Shakspeare's Antony and Cleopatra. [ ( Latham .) 2t. To hector; swagger; bully. Forby, quoted in Hall i well.