practisant

English

Etymology

Apparently from practise +‎ -ant; originally modelled on French.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈpɹæktɪzənt/

Noun

practisant (plural practisants)

1. One who practises something; a practitioner.
   • 1904, Frederick Rolfe, Hadrian the Seventh:

     A Pope who asked you the hour and the date and the place of your birth, drew diagrams on paper, and then told you your secret vices and virtues, was a practisant of arts unholy

2. (obsolete) An agent or confederate in treachery.
   • 1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Sixt”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene i]:

     Here entered Pucelle and her practisants.

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “practisant”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)

Anagrams

• pancratist