Marquis

How to spell marquis

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce marquis

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does marquis mean?

1. nounA nobleman ranking above a count or earl and below a duke.

Marquis in a sentence

• The marquis inherited a vast estate in the south of the country.

• Historians traced the marquis and his family back four centuries.

Where does marquis come from?

Language of origin: French

The word comes from the Old French marquis, an alteration of earlier marchis, meaning a nobleman who governed a 'march', that is, a border or frontier district of a kingdom. The 'march' element traces back to the Frankish word marka, meaning a boundary or frontier zone, the same Germanic root that gives us the English word 'mark' in the sense of a limit or sign. Because border territories needed strong defenders, the lord placed in charge of a march ranked highly, sitting in the nobility between a count and a duke. English borrowed the title in the late Middle Ages, and the French spelling with its silent feel and the -quis ending was largely preserved, which is why the word looks foreign on the page. The closely related English form 'marquess' developed alongside it, and the feminine 'marchioness' still shows the older 'march' spelling clearly. That split between marquis and marquess is exactly the trap that makes the word easy to misspell.

How the word is built

• march- (frontier, border region, from Frankish marka)
• -is (Old French noun ending)