client

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. The party for which professional services are rendered, as by an attorney.
2. n. A customer or patron: clients of the hotel.
3. n. A person using the services of a social services agency.
4. n. One that depends on the protection of another.
5. n. A client state.
6. n. Computer Science A computer or program that can download files for manipulation, run applications, or request application-based services from a file server.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. In Roman antiquity, a person who was under the guardianship and protection of another of superior rank and influence, called his patron. The relation of client and patron between a plebeian and a patrician, although at first strictly voluntary, was hereditary, the former bearing the family name of the latter, and performing various services for him and his family both in peace and war, in return for advice and support in respect to private rights and interests. Foreigners in Rome, and even allied or subject states and cities, were often clients of Roman patricians selected by them as patrons. The number of a patrician's clients, as of a baron's vassals in the middle ages, was a gage of his greatness.
2. n. In a general sense, one who lives under the patronage of, or whose interests are represented by, another.
3. n. In the middle ages, any follower of a noble or knight; an inferior soldier, mounted or on foot; a vassal.
4. n. One who puts a particular interest into the care and management of another; specifically, one who applies to a lawyer for advice and direction in a question of law, or commits his cause or his legal interests in general to a lawyer's management.

Wiktionary

1. n. A customer, a buyer or receiver of goods or services.
2. n. The role of a computer application or system that requests and/or consumes the services provided by another having the role of server.
3. n. Person who receives help or advice from a professional person (ex. a lawyer, an accountant, a social worker, a psychiatrist, etc).
4. n. A legal term: According to Corpus Juris Secundum, A client (of an Attorney) is defined as "a Ward of the Court". "Wards of the Court" are defined as infants or persons of "unsound mind". "Unsound mind" has been defined and used in statutes and codes indescriminantly with such things as "lunacy" (peridodic madness), "idiocy" and "insanity". see Blacks Law dictionary 4th Edition.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. A citizen who put himself under the protection of a man of distinction and influence, who was called his patron.
2. n. A dependent; one under the protection of another.
3. n. One who consults a legal adviser, or submits his cause to his management.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. someone who pays for goods or services
2. n. a person who seeks the advice of a lawyer
3. n. (computer science) any computer that is hooked up to a computer network