Lord

How to spell lord

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce lord

What does lord mean?

1. nounA man of high rank or noble title, or a person who holds power and authority over others.
2. verbTo behave in a domineering or superior way toward others, usually in the phrase to lord it over someone.

Lord in a sentence

• noun

  The lord of the manor collected rent from every tenant farm.

• verb

  He likes to lord his promotion over the rest of the team.

• noun

  She was introduced to a lord and his wife at the charity dinner.

• verb

  She would lord her seniority over the new recruits at every meeting.

Where does lord come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Lord is a thoroughly native English word with a humble and rather surprising origin. It comes from the Old English hlafweard, which literally meant 'loaf-keeper' or 'bread-guardian', formed from hlaf (loaf, the source of the modern word 'loaf') and weard (keeper or guardian, related to 'ward' and 'warden'). The idea was that the head of a household was the one who provided and protected the bread for his dependents, so the term naturally came to mean master or ruler. Over the centuries the long compound was worn down in speech, first to hlaford and then to the single syllable we now write as 'lord', which is why the spelling no longer shows any trace of the loaf or the guardian inside it. The female counterpart 'lady' has the same buried beginning, since it derives from hlafdige, the 'loaf-kneader'. By the medieval period the word had broadened to cover noble titles, feudal landholders, and, when capitalised, God.

How the word is built

• hlaf (loaf, bread)
• weard (keeper, guardian); Old English hlafweard contracted to hlaford