countshipn.
/ˈkaʊntʃɪp/, U.S. /ˈkaʊn(t)ˌʃɪp/ Now chiefly historical.
1. The rank or office of count. Also (chiefly with possessive adjective): a title of respect given to a count.
ΘΚΠ
society > society and the community > social class > nobility > rank > earl, count, or countess > [noun] > earl or count > rank of earl or count
earldomOE
earlship?1588
countship1658
1658 R. Flecknoe Enigmaticall Characters 63 She has as much in her of the antient Counteship as would have serv'd six of Queen Elizabeths Countesses.
1689 T. Shadwell Bury-Fair iv. 46 Carry on your Countship as much as you will.
1702 G. Farquhar Inconstant iii. i. 38 Where's that bombast look..your Countship wore just now?
1786 C. W. Briscoe Clerimont 174 The gentleman demanded the money—his Countship could not pay.
1868 R. Browning Ring & Bk. II. vi. 179 How his Countship sulks!
1946 Eng. Hist. Rev. 61 152 The territorial element in Norman countship is perhaps illustrated in the career of Richard fitz Gilbert.
1989 Times (Nexis) 30 Mar. Oh, yes, your Countship, most kind of you not to insist that we curtsey, but we feel we must for a gentleman like you.
1995 D. J. D. Boulton in S. Church & R. Harvey Medieval Knighthood V. 64 The ceremony of ‘girding’ men to countship is not firmly attested in England until just after the accession of Richard the Lionheart in 1189.
2. The domain or jurisdiction of a count; a count's period of rule.
ΘΚΠ
society > authority > rule or government > territorial jurisdiction or areas subject to > jurisdiction or territory of specific rulers or nobles > [noun] > of count
countyc1400
countship1831
1699 W. Wotton tr. L. E. Du Pin New Eccl. Hist. XIII. iii. 29 In the same Session, the Government of the City of Avignon, and the Countship of Venaissin, were given to the Cardinal of St. Eustache.
1763 C. G. L. A. A. T. d'Eon de Beaumont Let. Count de Guerchy 17 The late prince de Tingri, bought, in 1751, the countship of Vergy bordering upon his land of Cologne.
1785 Gentleman's Mag. Dec. 995/2 His Imperial Majesty renounces..the countship of Vroenhoven.
1831 T. Carlyle Early German Lit. in Misc. Ess. (1888) III. 199 For all which, Anton and his kindred had countships and princeships in abundance.
1861 C. H. Pearson Early & Middle Ages Eng. 336 The countships of Northumberland and Huntingdon, which had once belonged to his wife's father, Waltheof.
1903 Bookman May 303/1 Nobody would accept his denial of a famous epigram attributed to him during his countship.
1935 Art Bull. 17 487 The line became extinct, and the countship reverted to the crown.
2012 Lebanon (Pa.) Daily News (Nexis) 10 Apr. A published history of that family..traced them to the town of Elsoff in the countship of Wittgenstein in Germany.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, June 2014; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1658