Tennison

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Alfred, Lord Tennyson was a Victorian English poet laureate known for works such as Idylls of the King and In Memoriam
2. A surname borne by the nineteenth-century English poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson, author of The Charge of the Light Brigade
3. Name of the Victorian poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson, or of a family surname connected with his well-known verse

Etymology: Alfred Tennyson's surname is a patronymic, meaning "son of Dennis." English surnames of this kind were formed by adding "-son" to a father's given name, and "Tennyson" is a variant of "Dennison," which is the same construction. The given name Dennis descends from the Latin "Dionysius," which came from the Greek "Dionysios," the name of Dionysus, the god of wine and revelry. Traced back far enough, the Victorian laureate's family name carries the name of a wine god, though the word itself has no connection to drink.