Lords

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Related to Lords: Lords Prayer, Drug lords

lord

(lôrd)

1. A man of high rank in a feudal society or in one that retains feudal forms and institutions, especially:

a. A king.

b. A territorial magnate.

c. The proprietor of a manor.

2. Lords The House of Lords.

3. Abbr. Ld. Chiefly British The general masculine title of nobility and other rank:

a. Used as a form of address for a marquis, an earl, or a viscount.

b. Used as the usual style for a baron.

c. Used as a courtesy title for a younger son of a duke or marquis.

d. Used as a title for certain high officials and dignitaries: Lord Chamberlain; the Lord Mayor of London.

e. Used as a title for a bishop.

4. Lord

a. God.

b. Christianity Jesus.

a. A man of renowned power or authority.

b. A man who has mastery in a given field or activity.

c. Archaic The male head of a household.

d. Archaic A husband.

v. lord·ed, lord·ing, lords

v.tr.

To insist upon or boast about so as to act in a domineering or superior manner: "He had lorded over her his self-proclaimed spiritual and poetic superiority" (David Leavitt).

v.intr.

1. To act in a domineering or superior manner: an upperclassman lording over the younger students.

2. To have a prominent or dominating position: The castle lords over the valley.

3. To rule over: lorded over a vast empire.

Idiom:

lord it over

To act in a domineering or superior manner toward: "She's lorded it over me all our adult lives because she went to college" (Jane Stevenson).

[Middle English, from Old English hlāford : hlāf, loaf; see loaf + weard, guardian; see wer- in Indo-European roots.]

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Lords

(lɔːdz)

(Government, Politics & Diplomacy) the Lords short for House of Lords

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

References in classic literature ?

May I ask, Lord Illingworth, if you regard the House of Lords as a better institution than the House of Commons?

Lord Illingworth, of course, is a man of high distinction.

View in context

[Enter LORD GORING in evening dress with a buttonhole.

Yes, my lord. [Takes his hat, cane, and cape, and presents new buttonhole on salver.]

View in context

Morning-room of Lord Windermere's house in Carlton House Terrace.

Lord Darlington, you annoyed me last night at the Foreign Office.

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She has no more money, and she offers my Lord her chair.

My Lord smiles superbly, and presses a second loan on her.

View in context

The sentinel wanted to repulse him; but Felton called to the officer of the post, and drawing from his pocket the letter of which he was the bearer, he said, "A pressing message from Lord de Winter."

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Time now flew away unperceived, and the noble lord had been two hours in company with the lady, before it entered into his head that he had made too long a visit.

View in context

All the world knows that Lord Steyne's town palace stands in Gaunt Square, out of which Great Gaunt Street leads, whither we first conducted Rebecca, in the time of the departed Sir Pitt Crawley.

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'No, no, my lord; you are too good, you are too kind; but your life is of far too much importance to the nation in these portentous times, to be placed upon a level with one so useless and so poor as mine.