Laird

/lɛːd/ · noun

Meaning

(historical) A feudal lord in Scottish contexts..

Definitions by Sense

1. (historical) A feudal lord in Scottish contexts.
2. (chiefly Scotland) An aristocrat, particularly in Scottish contexts and in reference to the chiefs of the Scottish clans.
3. (chiefly Scotland) A landowner, particularly in Scottish contexts.
4. (transitive, Scotland) Chiefly as laird it over: to behave like a laird, particularly to act haughtily or to domineer; to lord (it over).

Example Sentences

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...

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?

[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.

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.

Lowland lairds allied themselves with Highland chiefs, along with Edinburgh and Glasgow burghers who worried about having to compete for markets with English merchants.

In Scotland, the traditional term for the owner of an upland estate is the ‘laird’. [...] Well into the post-war period, the lairds of large estates were generally treated deferentially by local people but times have changed, [...] It would be a mistake to equate the title ‘laird’ to a British ‘lord’, as it does not confer any political standing, but the fact that some of Scotland’s lairds sit in the House of Lords can confuse the outsider.

But cauld was his hearth ere his youdith was o'er, / An' he delved on the lands he had lairded before; / Yet though he beggared his ha' an' deserted his lea, / Contented he roamed on the banks o' the Dee.

You'd stand with a single malt, / in braces, admiring a Grinling, / while I did a fingertip search of your face, / [...] / discovering the recesses of baronial you, / lairding it in a rental estate / we were about to lose.

Synonyms for laird

Antonyms for laird

Related Words

Word Forms

• lairds
• lairding
• lairded

Usage Notes

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