Seigniorship

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The rank, power and authority held by a feudal lord or seignior over his lands and the people living on them
2. The office or dignity of a seignior, meaning the lordship and jurisdiction exercised over a manor or domain
3. The status of a lord who holds sovereign rights and privileges over a territory, particularly in medieval feudal society

Etymology: "Seigniorship" is built from "seignior," a word that came into English from Old French "seignour," which descends from Latin "senior," meaning "older" or "elder." The lord of a medieval estate was, in effect, the older or superior man, and the same Latin root gave English "senior" and "sire." The English suffix "-ship" was then attached to form a noun for the rank, rights and authority of such a lord, the same suffix found in "lordship" and "kingship." The word is a piecewise doublet of "seniorship" and "signiorship." A doublet is a pair of words from the same source that arrived by different routes, and here the Latin root split into several English forms, with "senior" keeping the sense of rank by age or standing while "seignior" kept the feudal lordly sense. "Seigniorship" thus belongs to a small family of related words that all trace back to the idea of the elder or superior.

Synonyms: lordship, seigniory, dominion