From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:
Client \Cli"ent\, n. [L. cliens, -emtis, for cluens, one who
hears (in relation to his protector), a client, fr. L. cluere
to be named or called; akin to Gr. ? to hear, Skr. [,c]ry,
and E. loud: cf. F. client. See Loud.]
1. (Rom. Antiq.) A citizen who put himself under the
protection of a man of distinction and influence, who was
called his patron.
[1913 Webster]
2. A dependent; one under the protection of another.
[1913 Webster]
I do think they are your friends and clients,
And fearful to disturb you. --B. Jonson.
[1913 Webster]
3. (Law) One who consults a legal adviser, or submits his
cause to his management.
[1913 Webster]
From WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006) [wn]:
client
n 1: a person who seeks the advice of a lawyer
2: someone who pays for goods or services [syn: customer,
client]
3: (computer science) any computer that is hooked up to a
computer network [syn: node, client, guest]
From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (8 July 2008) [foldoc]:
client
<programming> A computer system or process that requests a
service of another computer system or process (a "server")
using some kind of protocol and accepts the server's
responses. A client is part of a client-server software
architecture.
For example, a workstation requesting the contents of a file
from a file server is a client of the file server.
(1997-10-27)