Norman1
/ˈnôrmən
/A city in central Oklahoma, south of Oklahoma City, home to the University of Oklahoma; population 106,957 (est. 2008).
Rhymes
Norman2
/ˈnɔːmən
/noun
1A member of a people of mixed Frankish and Scandinavian origin who settled in Normandy from about ad 912 and became a dominant military power in western Europe and the Mediterranean in the 11th century.In the 12th century the Normans from Sicily held some towns, until the Almohads expelled them....
- Europe was dominated under the power of the Normans.
- In the south, the Lombards claimed sovereignty, where they established a separate government, until they were replaced by the Normans in the eleventh century.
1.1Any of the Normans who conquered England in 1066, or their descendants: the castle goes right back to the Normans born circa 1080, he was presumably a Norman from Calvados...
- No-one is quite sure how many motte and bailey castles were built in England by the Normans.
- After early invasions comes the Norman Conquest (the Normans soon found that the France they left became alien, and so they became rooted in England).
- As for the new conquerors and settlers, unlike the Normans in England, they did not succeed in appropriating the native past, and, as far as we know, made no attempt to do so.
1.2A native or inhabitant of modern Normandy.
2 [mass noun] The form of French spoken by the Normans.
adjective
1Relating to the Normans: the Norman invasion...
- Instead, he gave Dermot permission to recruit mercenaries from among his Norman knights.
- The lands were held before the Norman invasion by Edwin, earl of Mercia, who seems to have retained them until 1068 when he rose in revolt.
- The main consequence for London of the Norman invasion was the construction by William I of the White Tower in what is now the Tower of London.
1.1Denoting or relating to the style of Romanesque architecture used in Britain under the Normans: the 11th-century Norman crypt of Winchester Cathedral Willy rambled on about Norman archways and Perpendicular naves...
- In the mid-C11 Edward the Confessor began to rebuild it in the Norman style, but this project was incomplete at his death in 1065.
- Windsor castle was founded by William the Conqueror, who adopted the typical Norman design of motte and bailey, and was first used as a royal residence by Henry I.
- In 1067-8 an impressive Norman castle was built on the hilltop east of the River Ouse.
1.2Relating to modern Normandy: Norman ore was to have been smelted there with Ruhr coal
Derivatives
Normanize
- The Conqueror - backed by the pope - purged and Normanized the Church and imposed a systematic pyramid of feudal obligation, from Cornwall to the Tyne.
- He and his advisers continued to implement David I's Normanizing policies, despite mounting native opposition led by Fergus of Galloway and Somerled of Argyll.
- These anti-democratic sentiments drew little response in the early career of the Normanized South, since they seemed aimed primarily at the Northern ‘rabble.’
Origin
Middle English: from Old French Normans, plural of Normant, from Old Norse Northmathr 'Northman'.
The Normans who invaded England in 1066 were not simply Frenchmen. They were a people of mixed Germanic and Scandinavian origin who settled in Normandy from about ad 910 under their chief Rollo, and became dominant in western Europe and the Mediterranean. Their name is a form of Northman, which was first used in Old English in reference to Scandinavians, especially Norwegians (the related form Norseman (early 19th century) comes from the Dutch word for ‘north’). The form Norman was in use by the 13th century, by which time it referred specifically to the people from Normandy.