seigneurialadj.

1656 P. Heylyn Surv. Estate France iv. ii. 174 So did the Vidames disclaim their relation to the Bishop, and became Signieural or honorary also.

1673 W. Temple Observ. United Provinces i. 7 Seigneurial Jurisdiction over the Inhabitants.

1789 A. Young Jrnl. 24 Dec. in Trav. France (1792) i. 258 I was sorry to see, at the village, a carcan, or seigneural standard, erected, to which a chain and heavy iron collar are fastened, as a mark of the lordly arrogance of the nobility, and the slavery of the people.

a1797 E. Burke Ess. Abridgm. Eng. Hist. (rev. ed.) in Wks. (1812) V. 650 From them [sc. the clergy] were often taken the bailiffs of the seigneurial courts.

1834 K. H. Digby Mores Catholici V. vi. 156 In the seigneural chapel of the church of Mery-sur-Oise.

1865 Q. Rev. July 17 There was a something repugnant to the just pride of the Highland gentleman in the very idea of parting with his seigneurial rights, even for a season.

1887 Spectator 5 Nov. 1514/2 Canada could never have made much real progress under the seigneurial system.

1970 Times Lit. Suppl. 23 July 787/2 In the United States, Linguistics has long derived authority from the presence there of the two most seigneurial of living linguists, Roman Jakobson and Noam Chomsky.

1972 A. Friedman in C. B. Cox & A. E. Dyson 20th-cent. Mind I. xii. 428 Conrad's irony is heavy and fuming, his seigneurial distance from his madmen..woefully great.