journeyman
(ˈdʒɜːnɪmən)
[f. journey n. 5 + man.]
1. One who, having served his apprenticeship to a handicraft or trade, is qualified to work at it for days' wages; a mechanic who has served his apprenticeship or learned a trade or handicraft, and works at it not on his own account but as the servant or employee of another; a qualified mechanic or artisan who works for another. Distinguished on one side from apprentice, on the other from master.
| 1463–4 Rolls Parlt. V. 506/2 Aswell housholders as journeymen, Servauntes and Apprenticez. 1481 in Eng. Gilds (1870) 332 If any of the Jornaymen of the saide crafte be electe Warden. 1550 Disc. Common Weal Eng. 56 To give my Iorney men ij{supd} a daye more. 1608 Vestry Bks. (Surtees) 214 No younge man, journamen nor prentice. 1758 Johnson Idler No. 26 ¶8 My mistress..rose early in the morning to set the journeymen to work. 1849 Macaulay Hist. Eng. viii. II 274 The government appears to have had no hold on such a man, except the hold which master bakers and master tailors have on their journeymen. 1863 W. G. Blaikie Better Days Work. People ii. (1864) 81 The journeyman tyrannises over the apprentice. |
2. fig. (chiefly depreciatory): a. One who is not a ‘master’ of his trade or business. b. One who drudges for another; a hireling, one hired to do work for another.
| a 1548 Hall Chron., Hen. V 54 b, Every iorneiman of their faction..put all their..diligence to avance forward their sect and part. 1588 Marprel. Epist. (Arb.) 30 Nonresidents with their iourneimen the hedge priests. 1602 Shakes. Ham. iii. ii. 37, I haue thought some of Natures Iouerney-men had made men, and not made them well. a 1670 Hacket Abp. Williams i. (1692) 20 He attended at them..and acted in them vivâ voce, and did not put off the work to journey⁓men. 1705 Hickeringill Priest-cr. ii. vi. 62 A Lord being too Great to Pray to God himself, when he keeps a Journey-man or Chaplain to do that drudgery for him. 1762–71 H. Walpole Vertue's Anecd. Paint. (1786) IV. 237 The colouring was worse..than that of the most errant journey⁓men to the profession. 1817 (May) Title of Print, A Master Parson and his Journeyman. |
3. Astron. More fully, journeyman clock: a secondary clock in an observatory, used generally as an intermediary in the comparison of standard clocks.
| 1764 Maskelyne in Phil. Trans. LIV. 373, I fixed up a little clock there, which may be called a journeyman or secondary clock, having a pendulum swinging seconds. 1787 Smeaton ibid. LXXVII. 330 note, The journeyman clock was generally set to the transit clock on Sunday mornings... The journeyman will generally agree with the transit clock to 2{nfacu} in 24 hours. 1890 J. Service Sk. Jas. Dunlop in Thir Notandums 162 The journeyman employed was compared with a sidereal clock. |
b. = impulse dial (impulse n. 6 b).
| 1904 Goodchild & Tweney Technol. & Sci. Dict. 384/1 Master clock, the timepiece controlling and actuating by electricity a series of dial works, or ‘journeymen’, at different points in the circuit. 1923 [see impulse clock (impulse n. 6 b)]. 1938 J. W. Player Britten's Watch & Clock Maker's Handbk. (ed. 14) 159 Secondary clocks, sometimes called impulse clocks, dial works, or journeyman clocks, are simple constructions. |
4. attrib. and Comb., as journeyman tailor, journeyman work; journeyman-like adj. and adv.
| 1467 in Eng. Gilds (1870) 407 Alle jorneymen straungers comynge to the seid cite. 1615 J. Stephens Satyr. Ess. 424 Journy-man-like hee travailes from place to place, seeking to be set on worke before he hath learnt his trade. 1657 R. Ligon Barbadoes (1673) 109 You may hire poor Journy⁓men Taylors, here in the City. 1764 Low Life (ed. 3) 29 Journeymen Clergymen putting on their best Bands and Cassocks. 1825 Cobbett Rur. Rides (1885) II. 97 A journeyman parson comes and works in three or four churches of a Sunday. 1864 M. Arnold in Cornh. Mag. Aug. 172 To raise the standard amongst us for what I have called the journeyman-work of literature. |