Earl

How to spell earl

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce earl

What does earl mean?

1. nounA British nobleman ranking below a marquess and above a viscount.

Earl in a sentence

• The earl inherited a sprawling country estate from his father.

• The queen granted the loyal commander the rank of earl.

Where does earl come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Earl comes straight from the Old English word eorl, which originally meant a brave man or warrior, and by extension a man of noble rank, standing in contrast to the ceorl, an ordinary freeman. The word belongs to the native Germanic stock of English and has cousins in Old Norse jarl, the title of a chieftain serving a king, a connection strengthened during the Viking settlement of England. After the Norman Conquest the Latin-derived word 'count' was used on the Continent for the same rank, but the English kept their own term, which is why a man is an earl while his wife is a countess. The spelling settled with the unusual 'ea' vowel that the ear keeps hidden, since the word is pronounced simply as 'erl'. It remains the third rank of the British peerage, sitting below a marquess and above a viscount.

How the word is built

• earl (whole word, from Old English eorl: nobleman, warrior); no affixes