Ealdormanry

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The office, rank, or territorial authority held by an ealdorman, a senior royal official in Anglo-Saxon England
2. The jurisdiction or dignity of an Anglo-Saxon ealdorman, the regional lord who governed on behalf of the king
3. The position and authority of a shire-governing noble in early medieval England, known as an ealdorman

Etymology: Ealdormanry is built from "ealdorman," the Old English title for a high-ranking royal official, and the suffix "-ry," which in English forms nouns meaning an office, rank, or collective body (as in "chivalry" or "yeomanry"). Together they name the office of an ealdorman, or the district and authority that went with it. The title itself meant something like "elder man" or "senior man," the "ealdor" element carrying the sense of age and seniority that also appears in "elder." The word has a near twin in "aldermanry," which is the same term with the Old English spelling worn down over the centuries. Because the two forms are pieced together from the same elements but took separate paths into later English, they count as what linguists call a piecewise doublet: two slightly different routes to essentially one meaning. The older spelling with "ealdor" is the one that keeps the title's Anglo-Saxon shape visible.