Signiorship

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The rank, power, or authority held by a lord or signior over a domain and the people living on it
2. The office or dominion of a feudal lord, including the rights and control he exercises over his lands
3. The status of a lord who governs a territory and holds authority over those who live within its bounds

Etymology: "Signiorship" is a compound built from "signior," an older English form of "seignior" (a feudal lord, or in some usages a gentleman of rank), with the suffix "-ship," which marks a state, rank, or office, as in "lordship" or "friendship." Put together, it names the rule or dominion of a feudal lord. The word is what linguists call a piecewise doublet of "seigniorship" and "seniorship." In other words, it shares its history with those two forms, which all descend from the same stock of Old French and Latin vocabulary for superiority and lordship, yet came into English along slightly different paths and settled into different spellings and senses. "Signiorship" keeps the older "signior" spelling, which is why it looks more like a spelling variant of "seigniorship" than an independent coinage.