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Origin and history of prothonotary

prothonotary(n.)

also protonotary (under which spelling it appears in OED print edition), mid-15c., "principal clerk of a court," from Medieval Latin prothonotarius, from a Late Latin borrowing of Greek prōtonotarios "first scribe," originally the recorder of the court of the Byzantine empire, from prōtos "first" (see proto-) + Latin notarius (see notary). Related: Prothonotarial.

The -h- appeared in Medieval Latin, perhaps because Greek prōto- sometimes became prōth- (before an aspirated vowel); it was carried into Old French, which passed it to Middle English. Other Middle English proto- words from French also had variants in protho- (prothomartir "earliest martyr," Protheus "the god Proteus," prothogol "protocol," all 15c.), but soon it was purged from the others; prothonotary kept its perhaps through the powerful and necessary conservatism of legal language.

also from mid-15c.

Entries linking to prothonotary

notary(n.)

c. 1300, notarie, "a clerk, a personal secretary; person whose vocation was making notes or memoranda of the acts of others who wished to preserve them, and writing up deeds and contracts," from Old French notarie "scribe, clerk, secretary" (12c.) and directly from Latin notarius "shorthand writer, clerk, secretary," from notare, "to note," from nota "shorthand character, letter, note" (see note (n.)).

Meaning "person authorized to draw up and authenticate contracts and other legal instruments" is from mid-14c.; especially in notary public (late 15c.), which has the French order of noun-adjective. Related: Notarial.

proto-

before vowels prot-, word-forming element in compounds of Greek origin meaning "first, source, parent, preceding, earliest form, original, basic," from Greek prōto-, from prōtos "first" (from PIE *pre-, from root *per- (1) "forward," hence "before, first"). It is also used in forming words in the sciences and to form compounds having historical reference (such as Proto-Indo-European).

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