Lord (pronounced lawrd)
(1) In historic use, the master of the servants of a household; the master of a feudal manor (obsolete).
(2) A person who has authority, control, or power over others; a master or chief (now used only informally).
(3) A person who exercises authority from property rights; an owner of land, houses etc (a concept which persists in British & (some) Commonwealth land law in the title of Lord Paramount; in historical use, a feudal tenant holding his manor directly of the monarch.
(4) Informally, a person who is a leader or has great influence in a chosen profession; a magnate of a trade or profession (tobacco lords, press lords etc).
(5) In medieval Europe, a feudal superior, especially the master of a manor.
(6) In the UK peerage, a courtesy title granted to the sons of senior peers.
(7) The Lords Spiritual and Lords Temporal comprising the UK's House of Lords (always plural).
(8) In the UK, the ceremonial title of certain officials (used with some other title, name, or the like) such as Lord Chancellor, Lord Chief Justice etc.
(9) As “my Lord Bishop”, the polite title of a bishop (obsolete).
(10) In the peerage of the UK, the title informally substituted for baron, viscount, earl or marquis.
(11) The Supreme Being; God; Jehovah (initial capital letter).
(12) The Savior, Jesus Christ (initial capital letter).
(13) In astrology, a planet having dominating influence.
(14) Slang for a husband considered as head of the household (archaic except in the facetious phrase lord and master although use persists in some fundamentalist sects).
(15) In UK slang, a hunchback (obsolete).
(16) In Australian slang sixpence (the five cent piece) (obsolete).
1300s: From the fourteenth century Middle English lord and lorde, from the thirteenth century lourde and other variants which dropped the intervocalic consonant of the earlier lowerd, louerd, loverd, laford & lhoaverd, all derived from the Old English hlāford, from hlāfweard, the construct being hlāf (bread) + weard (keeper, guardian). The term was already being applied broadly prior to the literary development of Old English and was influenced by its common use to translate Latin dominus. The equivalent Scots form laird (lord), preserved a separate vowel development (which was the influence of the northern (Scottish & Middle English lard & laverd)), like the Old English compound hlāf-ǣta (servant (literally “bread-eater”)) and the modern English lady, from the Old English hlǣfdīġe (bread-kneader). The Old English hlaford was a contraction of earlier hlafweard (literally "one who guards the loaves), the construct being from hlaf (bread, loaf) + weard (keeper, guardian), from the primitive Indo-European root wer- (perceive, watch out for). The Middle English word laford entered Icelandic, where it survives as lávarður. The modern monosyllabic form emerged in the fourteenth century and was used as an interjection from late in the century, the Lord's Prayer dating from the 1540s and although the Old English hlaford (master of a household, ruler, superior) also used to describe God (translating the Latin Dominus), the Old English drihten was much more common.
The meaning "an owner of land, houses etc” dates from circa 1300, originally in the sense of “a landlord”. As “my lord”, it was by 1540 (in England) the usual polite form when addressing a nobleman under the rank of a duke and a bishop" as was an interjection from the late fourteenth century. As a general term of convenience used for the "peers of England" (especially those represented in parliaments), the use emerged in the mid-fifteenth century. The Lord's Prayer was from the 1540s and the phrase "Year of our Lord" (ie AD, (translating the Latin anno domini) came into use from the late fourteenth century. The expressions conveying a state of ignorance (Lord knows” & “Lord only knows” (both often appended with who, what, why etc)) seem first to have been recorded in 1711 although in oral use there may be a long tradition. The phrase “drinks like a lord”, was from the 1620s, presumably an either allusion to the cost of strong drink or the habits of the gentry.
The verb lord dates from circa 1300 in the sense of "to exercise lordship, rule as a lord" and was directly from the noun, the intransitive meaning "to play the lord, domineer" emerging late in the fourteenth century, the phrase “to lord it over” first recorded in the 1570. The interjection lordy was first noted in 1832 in imitation of African-American vernacular and was an extended form of the noun. The noun lordling (puny or contemptible lord) was a late term of disparagement and is long obsolete. An ancient calling, the noun warlord was coined only in 1856 and was usually considered a translation of the German Kriegsherr or the Chinese junfa. The early fourteenth century adjective lordly originally had the sense of "haughty, imperious; of or pertaining to lords, noble” and was used as an adverb to convey “despotically” but by the 1530s was used to demote “magnificent, on a grand scale, fit for a lord”. Lordship was from circa 1300 and was a direct translation of the Old English hlafordscipe (authority, rule, dominion (translating the Latin dominatio) and in common law developed as part of the system of land title. As a form of address to nobles, judges etc, use emerged and was gradually formalized from the late fifteenth century. The noun landlord (owner of a tenement, one who rents land or property to a tenant) dates from the early fifteenth century and by then Lord had been a surname for over a hundred years, best known now from the London cricket ground. The Scottish laird (landed proprietor or hereditary estate-holder) emerged in the mid-fifteenth century, having been used a surname since the thirteenth, both forms a Scottish and northern England dialectal variant of lord. Lord is a noun, proper noun, verb & interjection, lorded is a verb, lording is a noun & verb, lordy is an interjection and lordly is an adjective & adverb; the noun plural is lords.
The origin of Lord's Cricket Ground, in St John's Wood, London has nothing to do with the peerage. It’s named after its founder, Thomas Lord (1755-1832), the third of three grounds he established between 1787 and 1814. Lord was approached in 1786 by leading members of the White Conduit Club who wanted a more private venue and offered to underwrite the project so in May 1787, Lord acquired seven acres (28,000 m²) off Dorset Square for his first ground and White Conduit relocated there, soon becoming part of the new Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC). When the lease ended in 1810, Lord secured an eighty-year lease on two fields, the Brick and Great Fields at North Bank, St John's Wood. The second venue, now referred to as Lord's Middle ground, was built by 1809 but in 1813, Parliament requisitioned the land for Regent's Canal, thereby necessitating a further move. Lord then moved his ground to the present site, literally rolling up the turf from the old and transplanting it to the new.
The image was one of a series by Terry Richardson (b 1965) and appeared on the cover of the spring-summer 2010 edition of the French magazine Purple Fashion, the photo-shoot featuring clothes by a number of designers including Zac Posen, Alexander McQueen & Emmanuel Ungaro but predictably it was the invocation of our Lord Jesus which attracted most interest. A spokesman for the French Catholic League was quoted as saying "Not only is the pose inappropriate, the timing is offensive" (the magazine was released on the eve of Lent, the most sacred season in the Christian liturgical calendar). Although Ms Lohan at the time had not much been associated with penitence and abstinence, not long before she had tweeted that she believed it's "all about karma...what goes around comes around." In Hinduism and Buddhism, karma is an expression which describes the cyclical nature of an individual's thoughts & actions in this and previous lives, something which decides their fate in future existences. Noting that, The League's spokesman said "If she believes that, then it behooves her to apologize to Christians before it's too late", adding that she is "spiritually homeless" and "would benefit by converting to Christianity." Ms Lohan did not respond to the comments.
No comments:
Post a Comment