Definition (Noun) A professional penman; a scribe, copyist; a clerk, secretary, amanuensis. In Context "Soon after their return that fall, Eli Fly, a law student with neat handwriting, secured a position as a scrivener in a New York law office, a job that involved 'incessant writing from morning to evening.'" Nick Yablon, Untimely Ruins: An Archaeology of American Urban Modernity, 1819-1919, 2009.