client

In ancient Rome, a client was not merely someone who paid a lawyer: he was a person who literally “leaned” on a powerful patron for protection. The Latin cliēns described a plebeian attached to a patrician household, sometimes inheriting the patron’s family name and serving him in peace or war in exchange for advice and support. By the late fourteenth century, Anglo-French clyent had crossed into English, where the old Roman social arrangement gradually narrowed into the lawyer’s customer—the sense recorded around 1400. Around 1600, the word widened again to cover almost anyone placing an interest in another person’s care, from an accountant’s customer to a modern computer client requesting services from a server. The memorable core is simple: a client is someone who “leans on” expertise, protection, or infrastructure supplied by someone else.