client

A customer, a buyer or receiver of goods or services.

Noun

  1. A customer, a buyer or receiver of goods or services.
  2. The role of a computer application or system that requests and/or consumes the services provided by another having the role of server.
  3. A person who receives help or services from a professional such as a lawyer or accountant.
    • I corralled the judge, and we started off across the fields[…]. And thus we came by a circuitous route to Mohair,[…]. My client welcomed the judge […] and they disappeared together into the Ethiopian card-room, which...
  4. A person who employs or retains an attorney to represent him or her in any legal matter, or one who merely divulges confidential matters to an attorney while pursuing professional assistance without subsequently retaining the attorney.
  5. In ancient Rome, retainers and followers associated with a gens.
    • The nomen belonged to all members of a gens and to all those attached to it (women, clients, and freedmen included). - 1945, E[lizabeth] G[idley] Withycombe, “Introduction”, in The Oxford Dictionary of English Christian...
  6. Ellipsis of client state.
    • A third preliminary comment deals explicitly with the relations between clients and superpowers. - 1989, Edward A. Kolodziej, Roger E. Kanet, Limits of Soviet Power, page 95:

Origin

From Middle English client, from Anglo-Norman clyent, Old French client, from Latin cliēns, akin to clinare (“to lean”).

Forms

clients

Synonyms

buyer customer patron purchaser

Antonyms

server

Hyponyms

fat client heavy client hybrid client lean client rich client RTE client slim client thick client thin client ultra-thin client Web client zero client zombie client

Related

clientele climate cline server

Derived

cliency clientage cliental clientdom cliented clientess clienthood clientish clientism clientitis clientless clientlike cliently clientness clientship direct client contact multiclient nonclient servent client-only client-server client-side clientworthy attorney-client privilege