Date: Tue Jan 16 00:03:14 EST 2001
Subject: A.Word.A.Day--barrator

barrator also barrater (BAR-uh-tuhr) noun

One that persistently instigates lawsuits.

[Middle English baratour, from Old French barateour, swindler, from barater, to cheat, perhaps from Vulgar Latin *prattare, from Greek prattein, to do.]

"Thus in the second circle nest
hypocrisy, flatteries, and sorcerers;
lies, theft, and simony;
panders, barrators, and all such filth."
Inferno XI.57-60.

"This is Virgil's description of the denizens of Malebolge, the eighth and penultimate circle of hell, in which those who practiced fraud are punished. For Dante, barratry, the buying and selling of civil office, was
equally contemptible as the sin of simony, the buying or selling of ecclesiastical office, for which we hear the names of three popes angrily recounted in Inferno XIX."

There is a definition of "barratry" in English Admiralty Law, the fraudently claiming insurance benefits for a ship
and cargo, when the ship actually sunk was of very low
value, and had no cargo.