▪ I. interlocutor1
(-ˈlɒkjʊtə(r))
Also 6–7 -our, 6 -loquutor.
[f. L. type *interlocūtor, agent-n. f. interloquī: see interlocution, and cf. F. interlocuteur (16th c. in Godef. Compl.).]
a. One who takes part in a dialogue, conversation, or discussion. In pl. the persons who carry on a dialogue.
| 1514 Barclay Cyt. & Uplondyshm. (Percy Soc.) 3 Interlocutoures be Amyntas and Faustus. 1559 W. Cuningham Cosmogr. Glasse 1 The Interloquutors: Philonicus, Spondæus. a 1670 Hacket Abp. Williams i. (1693) 20 An assiduous Overseer and Interlocutor at the Afternoon Disputations of the Under Graduates. 1699 Bentley Phal. 279 The Interlocutors in this Dialogue, are Socrates and one Minos an Athenian, his Acquaintance. 1763 J. Brown Poetry & Mus. vi. 108 'Tis probable that He [Thespis] was the first Declaimer or Interlocutor to his own Choir. 1849 Macaulay Hist. Eng. vi. II. 69 Dryden had done him the honor to make him a principal interlocutor in the dialogue on dramatic poesy. 1875 Jowett Plato (ed. 2) V. 7. |
b. With poss. pron. One who enters into or takes part in conversation with another.
| 1848 Thackeray Van. Fair li. (end) ‘It's you, Moss, is it?’ said the Colonel, who appeared to know his interlocutor. 1859 Geo. Eliot A. Bede ii, Your true rustic turns his back on his interlocutor. 1863 Mrs. C. Clarke Shaks. Char. ii. 50 Celia..always checks the career of her wit, when it curvets beyond the comfort of her interlocutor. |
c. The compère in a troupe of nigger minstrels; the man in the middle of the minstrel line who questions the end men.
| 1880 E. James Amat. Negro Minstrel's Guide 2 Interlocutor or Middle Man, in the Center. 1884 [see banjoist]. 1957 W. C. Handy Father of Blues xxi. 276 Henry Troy acted as the interlocutor, with Tom Fletcher and Laurence Deas as end men. |
▪ II. interlocutor2 Sc. Law
(-ˈlɒkjʊtə(r))
Also 6, 8 -loquitur, -tor, 6–7 -loquutour.
[a. F. interlocutoire interlocutory, ad. L. interlocūtōrium: see next, and cf. declarator. The occasional spelling interloquitur appears to imply an identification with the L. verbal form interloquitur ‘he pronounces an interim sentence’.]
A judgement or order of a court or of the Lords Ordinary, signed by the pronouncing or presiding judge.
‘Interlocutors, correctly speaking, are judgments or judicial orders pronounced in the course of a suit, but which do not finally determine the cause. The term, however, in Scotch practice, is applied indiscriminately to the judgments or orders of the Court, or of the Lords Ordinary, whether they exhaust the question at issue or not’ (Bell Dict. Law Scotl. 1861).
| 1533 Bellenden Livy iii. (1822) 272 This Appius..or evir ony place wes gevin to Virginius to answere to the peticioun, he gaif his interloquitur [Boyndlie MS. interlocutour] aganis Virginia. 1560 Rolland Crt. Venus iv. 285 Scho was put to honour Aboue Venus be Interloquutour Of the Assise furth geuin be thair sentence. 1639 in Row Hist. Kirk (Wodrow Soc.) 525 Protests that all acts, sentences, decreets, interlocutors, to be pronunced, be in themselves null, voyd, and ineffectuall. 1746–7 Act 20 Geo. II, c. 43 §14 Decrees, Sentences, Interloquitors, Judgments, Executions, or Proceedings relating to any Civil or Criminal Cause in any such Court. 1818 Cruise Digest (ed. 2) V. 34 The House of Lords ordered, that the interlocutor complained of in the appeal should be reversed; and that the interlocutor of the Lord Ordinary should be affirmed. |