client [LME] Client was borrowed from both French and Latin and came into English with two main senses. Initially it had the Roman sense of someone who is dependent on another or under their protection. In medieval English this reflected the feudal hierarchy then in place. From French came the sense of someone who employs a legal adviser, also Late Middle English. This did not expand to a customer of any professional until the mid 19th century. Clientele [L16th] was also borrowed from both Latin and French, originally for a group of people dependent on the patronage of another, a sense which largely died out. It was then reborrowed from French in its modern sense of ‘customers’ in the 1830s.