Manor

How to spell manor

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce manor

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does manor mean?

1. nounA large country house together with the land and estate historically attached to it.

Manor in a sentence

• The wedding was held at a restored Tudor manor in the countryside.

• The family had owned the manor and its farmland for three centuries.

Where does manor come from?

Language of origin: French

This word travelled into English from the Old French manoir, meaning 'a dwelling' or 'a residence', which was itself a noun formed from the verb manoir 'to stay or remain'. That French verb descended from the Latin manere, meaning 'to stay, to dwell, to remain in place', so a manor was originally simply the place where the lord stayed put. English adopted it in the early 1300s as a legal and feudal term for a landed estate held by a lord, with the great house at its centre and the surrounding lands worked by tenants. The same Latin root manere also gives us 'permanent' (something that stays through) and 'mansion' (another grand dwelling), which is a handy reminder that the word is about staying in a place. The spelling trap is that manor sounds exactly like 'manner' (a way of behaving), yet manor keeps the single 'n' and the -or ending that echoes its French and Latin dwelling sense.

How the word is built

• manor (from Latin manere: to stay, to dwell)

Words that sound like manor

They sound the same but mean different things, so the meaning decides which spelling to write.

• manner: The way in which something is done or happens.