registrar
(ˈrɛdʒɪstrɑː(r), rɛdʒɪˈstrɑː(r))
[f. register v. + -ar2: cf. the earlier registrer and registrary.
The form is noted by Vesey, Decline of the Eng. Lang. (1841) 82, as a ‘novelty..recently, within the memory of persons now living, introduced’.]
1. a. One whose business it is to keep a register; an official recorder. spec. the title of (a) a senior officer with administrative responsibility in certain universities; (b) a local official responsible for maintaining an index of births, marriages, and deaths in the area under his authority.
| 1675 Bathurst in Warton Life (1761) 136 The patent was sealed and delivered, and the person admitted, sworne before the public registrar. 1768 Blackstone Comm. III. xxvii. 451 The minutes of it are taken down, and read openly in court by the registrar. 1812 Act 52 Geo. III, c. 146 §7 The Registrar of every Diocese in England. 1835 Act 5 & 6 Will. IV, c. 19 §21 A due Return should be made to the said Registrar of Merchant Seamen. 1868 Farrar Silence & V. iii. (1875) 57 Every great historian should be no dull registrar of events. |
| (a) 1756 Reply to Dr. Huddesford's Observations relating to Delegates of Press 4 A Convocation being appointed to be held in the Theater on the second of July, the Vice-Chancellor gave directions to the Registrar to prepare the forms of nomination. 1797 Encycl. Brit. (ed. 3) XVI. 54/2 Registrar, an officer in the English universities, who has the keeping of all the public records. 1870 D. P. Chase Registrarship of University 5 The Registrar has been relieved of a great amount of labour connected with the University accounts. 1900 Statuta et Decreta Univ. Oxon. 283 The Registrar of the University shall be elected in Convocation. He..is required to attend..all meetings of the Houses of Congregation and Convocation and of the Congregation of the University,..and generally to perform all duties necessary for carrying on the business of the Houses. 1943 ‘B. Truscot’ Redbrick Univ. iii. 59 After a pause for breath we come to the whole of the University [of Bristol] Council, the Deans of Faculties, the Professors and Professores Emeriti, the Librarian, the Registrar, twenty-nine representatives of Convocation, [etc.]. 1953 K. Amis Lucky Jim i. 16 He'd been passing behind the Registrar's chair.., had stumbled and had knocked the chair aside just as the other man was sitting down. 1975 J. Mann Captive Audience i. 10 The crowd of students..far from being calmed by the duplicated communication which the registrar had delivered had become wild and agitated. 1980 Times 1 Aug. 15/7 (Advt.), In view of the forthcoming retirement of the present Registrar, applications are invited for the post of Registrar of the University of Wales. |
| (b) 1864 Dickens Mut. Fr. i. xi. 106 There were the Inquests and the Registrar's returns. 1876 C. M. Yonge Three Brides II. xiii. 242 They put up their banns at the Union at Brighton, and were married by the Registrar. 1880 A. Trollope Duke's Children II. xxvii. 325 None of your private chaplains... Just the registrar, if there is nothing better. 1892 I. Zangwill Childr. Ghetto II. i. xxv. 218 Let us be married honestly by a registrar. 1967 Guardian 1 Aug. 4/3 The shot-gun marriages tend to take place in the registrar's office under the mistaken impression that the church does not marry pregnant brides. |
b. registrar general. (See
general a. 10.)
| 1836 Act 6 & 7 Will. IV, c. 86 §6 The Registrar General shall send..a General Abstract of the Numbers of Births, Deaths, and Marriages. 1863 A. Young Naut. Dict. (ed. 2) 306 A general register and record office of seamen in the mercantile marine, under the direction of a registrar-general. |
2. = register n.1 8 and 10.
| 1840 Penny Cycl. XVI. 492/2 (Organ), A shows the reservoir;..DD, the registrars, by which the equal rising of the reservoir is ensured. 1879 in Sladen Gunnery App. ii, The electro-magnet, B, sustains a shorter rod, F.., named the ‘registrar’. |
3. A doctor of a certain grade in a hospital:
orig. a junior doctor whose duties included the maintenance of a register of patients; now
usu. a senior officer undergoing training as a specialist or consultant.
Cf. resident n. 3.
| 1862 Med. Times & Gaz. 18 Oct. 411/2 Besides these there are a Resident Medical Officer, or Physician's Assistant..; a Medical and Surgical Registrar at a salary of {pstlg}25 a year; two House Surgeons. 1894 Brit. Med. Jrnl. 10 Nov. 1089/1 Rayner, Herbert E., F.R.C.S.Eng., appointed Surgical Registrar and Anæsthetist to the Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond Street. 1937 Ibid. 4 Sept. 470/2 Qualified students of the school can obtain appointments as house-physicians and house-surgeons, obstetric assistants, surgical, gynaecological, and medical registrars. 1961 Lancet 29 July 264/2 There would seem to be intra⁓professional divisions in which interests do not quite coincide—e.g., the unplaced registrars and the established consultants. 1965 P. Ferris Doctors iii. 59 What senior registrars want is to be appointed consultants. 1977 Western Morning News 30 Aug. 3/3 Some new patients have to wait as long as two to three years before they are seen, because the consultant surgeons spend so much of their time with follow-up cases; these could be handled easily and effectively by registrars. 1980 Times Lit. Suppl. 1 Aug. 879/2 In interviews with residents (in Britain, registrars) she found that they expressed strong preference for the middle-class patient. |
Hence
ˈregistrarship (also stressed
regiˈstrarship), the office of registrar.
| 1847 in Webster. 1852 Tait's Mag. XIX. 622 His registrarship of {pstlg}10,000 a-year. 1889 Brit. Med. Jrnl. 9 Nov. 1077/1 London Hospital,..—Surgical Registrarship. Salary {pstlg}100 per annum. 1891 Law Times XC. 419/2 A mastership in lunacy, and a registrarship in bankruptcy. 1937 Brit. Med. Jrnl. 4 Sept. 467/2 In addition, the following appointments are open to all qualified students of the hospital:..two medical registrarships at {pstlg}100 per annum. 1963 Lancet 12 Jan. 117/2 After he was demobilised in 1946 he held registrarships in Bristol at Southmead Hospital and the Children's Hospital. |