Laird Meaning
/lɛːd/Definition, CEFR level B2, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
nounA feudal lord in Scottish contexts.
nounAn aristocrat, particularly in Scottish contexts and in reference to the chiefs of the Scottish clans.
Sentence Examples
The laird owned a large estate in Scotland.
He was addressed as the laird of the manor.
The wealthy laird owned a large estate in Scotland.
CEFR Practice Quiz
The wealthy Scottish landowner, known as a ____, owned vast acres of highland estate.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The local ____ owned most of the land in the valley and lived in a large historic castle on the hill.
Word Origin & History
The noun is borrowed from Scots laird, from northern or Scottish Middle English lard, laverd, a variant of lord. The verb is derived from the noun. Doublet of hlaford and lord.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"Now Wiſe, and Rich, and Worthie, and Wonderful, and Faithful and True, and Rare, & Charitable, and Great Laird of Carnwath, Be not Prowd, altho I Commend you at ſuch a Rate behind your back and yet never ſaw You..."
— 1712 January 1, [William Mitchel], The Tinklars Speech to the Most Loyal Country-man, the Honourable Laird of Carnwath, [Edinburgh?]: [s.n.], →OCLC, page 2:
"Once I was call'd a great Fife laird,
I dwelt not far from the Hall-yard:
[...]
O! but it's long and many a year,
Since laſt my feet did travel here.
I find great change in old lairds places,
I know the ground, but not the faces,
Where ſhall I turn me firſt about,
For my acquaintance is worn out?"
— 1751, “The Speech of a Fife Laird, Newly Come from the Grave”, in The Speech of a Fife Laird Newly Come from the Grave. The Mare of Collingtoun. The Banishment of Poverty. Three Scots Poems, Glasgow: Printed and sold by Robert & Andrew Foulis, →OCLC, page 2:
"[H]e brought with him money enough to purchase the small estate of Monkbarns, then sold by a dissipated laird to whose father it had been gifted, with other church lands, upon the dissolution of the great and wealthy monastery to which it had belonged."
— 1816, [Walter Scott], chapter II, in The Antiquary. […], volume I, Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, →OCLC, page 27:
"Though now entered on the stage of glorious war, the young Laird of Dalbracken remained still the same imaginative and sensitive being who dreamed and loved in the scenes of his boyhood."
— 1848, [James Kirkland], chapter XV, in The Eerie Laird: Being the Only Authentic History of the Person so Called by Tradition in Scotland; […], London: T[homas] C[autley] Newby, […], →OCLC, page 143:
"Lowland lairds allied themselves with Highland chiefs, along with Edinburgh and Glasgow burghers who worried about having to compete for markets with English merchants."
— 2001, Arthur [L.] Herman, “A Trap of Their Own Making”, in How the Scots Invented the Modern World: The True Story of How Europe’s Poorest Nation Created Our World & Everything in It, New York, N.Y.: Crown Publishers, →ISBN; paperback edition, New York, N.Y.: Three Rivers Press, 2001, →ISBN, part 1 (Epiphany), page 40:
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CEFR Practice Quiz
The wealthy Scottish landowner, known as a ____, owned vast acres of highland estate.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The local ____ owned most of the land in the valley and lived in a large historic castle on the hill.