English
lord
Lord comes from Old English hlāford ‘lord, master of servants or slaves’, and goes back to hlāfweard.
- Old Englishc. 450–1150hlāfweard1
- Old Englishc. 450–1150hlāford1‘lord’
- Middle Englishc. 1150–1500lord1
- Englishearliest quotation c. 1391lord1
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor
- 1 Wiktionary, English lord
- Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: c. 1391, Geoffrey Chaucer, Treatise on the Astrolabe: “The assendent, & eke the lord of the assendent,…”.
Lineage
- Old Englishc. 450–1150hlāfweardWiktionary, English lord
- Old Englishc. 450–1150hlāfordWiktionary, English lord‘lord’
- Middle Englishc. 1150–1500lordWiktionary, English lord
- Englishearliest quotation c. 1391lordWiktionary, English lord. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: c. 1391, Geoffrey Chaucer, Treatise on the Astrolabe: “The assendent, & eke the lord of the assendent,…”
A compound of hlāf ‘bread’ + weard ‘guard’
Proto-Indo-European *kʷel-
Proto-Germanic *hlaibaz ‘bread’
Proto-West Germanic *hlaib ‘bread, loaf’
Old English hlāf ‘bread’
Proto-Indo-European *wert- ‘to turn, to rotate, spin’
Proto-Germanic *wardaz ‘turned’
Proto-West Germanic *ward ‘guard, guardian’
Old English weard ‘guard’
The story
From Middle English lord and lorde (attested from the 15th century), from earlier (14th century) lourde and other variants which dropped the intervocalic consonant of earlier lowerd, louerd, loverd, laford, and lhoaverd; from Old English hlāford < hlāfweard, a compound of hlāf (‘bread’) + weard (‘guardian’); see loaf and ward. The term was already being applied broadly prior to the literary development of Old English and was influenced by its common use to translate Latin dominus. The Middle English word laford was borrowed by Icelandic, where it survives as lávarður.
Linked words
pairs
- lord and loaf both from Old English hlāf ‘bread’
Every English word from Old English hlāfweard
Today it means
noun The master of the servants of a household; (historical) the master of a feudal manor
Sources
Sources: Wiktionary, “lord”. By Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0, via kaikki.org (dump of Oct 3 2026); text adapted and restructured. Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word. License.
Etymograph / Old English hlāfweard / lord