Alderman

How to spell alderman

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce alderman

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does alderman mean?

1. nounA senior elected member of a town, city, or county council.

Alderman in a sentence

• The alderman proposed a new budget for road repairs at the council meeting.

• Each ward in the city elects one alderman to represent local residents.

Where does alderman come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a native English word that traces back to the Old English ealdormann, a compound of ealdor, meaning 'elder' or 'chief', and mann, meaning 'man' or 'person'. The first element is the same root that gives us the modern word 'elder', and it carried the idea of seniority and authority rather than merely old age. In Anglo-Saxon England an ealdorman was a high-ranking nobleman who governed a shire on the king's behalf, so the title once described real political power. Over the centuries the sense narrowed to a senior member of a town or city council, and the spelling settled into 'alderman', where the 'd' from the old ealdor survives even though we now say 'elder' with a clear 'e'. That buried ealdor element, rather than the word 'old', is the reason the first syllable is 'alder' and not 'older'.

How the word is built

• alder- (from Old English ealdor: elder, chief)
• -man (man, person)