| 释义 |
laird Sc.|lɛəd|
Also 5–7 lard(e.
[The regular Sc. form of lord (repr. northern ME. laverd), surviving only in a special sense.
The southern form lord was as early as the 14th c. introduced into Scottish use in the English senses of the word. The native form lard appears occasionally in the 15th c. instead of lord: for examples see lord n.]
A landed proprietor. In ancient times limited to those who held immediately from the king.
c1450Holland Howlat 193 Pure freris..That, with the leif of the lard, Will cum to the corne ȝard At ewyn and at morn. 1508Kennedie Flyting w. Dunbar 515, I sall ger bake the to the lard of Hillhouse. 1535Stewart Cron. Scot. (1858) I. 65 Ouir all the land lord or laird wes nane, Bot he tuke part at that tyme witht the tane. 1596Dalrymple tr. Leslie's Hist. Scot. ix. 177 The lard of Cesfurde..meites him. 1647Clarendon Hist. Reb. ii. §19 A petition drawn up in the names of the nobility, lairds, clergy and burgesses, to the King. 1716Lond. Gaz. No. 5424/2 Our Detachment burnt the Laird's House. 1721Ramsay Whin-Bush Club i, Tho', to my loss, I am nae laird, By birth, my title's fair. 1786Burns Twa Dogs 51 Our Laird gets in his racked rents. 1846McCulloch Acc. Brit. Emp. (1854) II. 205 By the lesser barons were meant the proprietors of the smaller class of estates, provincially called lairds. 1872E. W. Robertson Hist. Ess. 138 note, In Scotland every tenant in capite, holding in Ward and Blench, continued to be reckoned as a Baron and was known as the Laird.
Hence (chiefly nonce-wds.) ˈlairdess, a laird's wife; ˈlairdie, a petty laird; ˈlairdly a., having the rank or quality of lairds; lairˈdocracy [after aristocracy], lairds as forming a ruling class.
17..in Hogg Jacob. Relics (1819) I. 83 Wha the deil hae we gotten for a king But a wee wee German lairdie? 1819Metropolis III. 83 The Highland and Border Lairdies. 1848Tait's Mag. XV. 123 The Scotch lairdocracy may take it into their heads. 1857Aiton Domest. Econ. 51 The Court of Teinds,..by their cruel bias to the lairdocracy, starve the ministers of the kirk. 1863Burton Book Hunter 10 Her sister lairdesses were enriching the tea⁓table conversation with broad descriptions of the abominable vices of their several spouses. 1877Tinsley's Mag. XXI. 46 He yet was descended from an ancient lairdly stock in that northern county. |