Lobbyist

How to spell lobbyist

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce lobbyist

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does lobbyist mean?

1. nounA person who is paid to influence politicians or officials on behalf of a particular interest or organisation.

Lobbyist in a sentence

• The pharmaceutical company hired a lobbyist to push for the new regulation.

• As a lobbyist for the energy sector, she spent most days meeting members of parliament.

Where does lobbyist come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word grows out of 'lobby', which English took in the 1500s from the Medieval Latin lobia or lobium, meaning a covered walk, gallery, or monastic cloister; the same root gives us the architectural 'loggia'. A lobby came to mean the large entrance hall of a building, and by the 1600s and 1700s it referred specifically to the open halls outside the chambers of a legislature. People hoping to influence lawmakers would wait and buttonhole them in these lobbies, so 'to lobby' became a verb for pressing a cause, and 'lobbyist' was coined in the United States during the 1800s for a person who does this professionally. The double 'b' simply carries over from 'lobby', and the tricky part for writers is the ending, where the 'y' is kept before '-ist' rather than changing to an 'i'.

How the word is built

• lobby (entrance hall where petitioners gathered)
• -ist (one who does)