nobleman

Etymology

It is formed from English noble + man.^[2][3][4][5] The OED compares Old French noble homme, from the beginning of the 13th century.^[2] The adjective is from Old French noble (“of noble bearing or birth”), from Latin nōbilis (“well-known; high-born”), from Proto-Indo-European *gno- (“to know”),^[3][6] and the noun goes back to Old English mann (“human being, person”).^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

A man of noble birth or rank: about 1225, in the Ancrene Riwle, a date the OED marks as uncertain.^[2] Etymonline dates the word to about 1300,^[3] Merriam-Webster Unabridged to the 14th century,^[5] and Dictionary.com much later, to 1520–30.^[7]

Semantic evolution

Stratmann glosses the Middle English word "person of high birth",^[8] and Johnson (1755) defines it as one who is ennobled, quoting Shakespeare's Henry VIII and Dryden.^[9] In chess, noblemen were the pieces as opposed to the pawns, from 1656 in F. Beale's translation of Greco,^[2] and at Oxford and Cambridge a nobleman was a student who was a nobleman's son, from 1682.^[2][4] The feminine noblewoman is recorded from the late 15th century.^[3]

Timeline

• c. 1225 – a man of noble birth or rank.^[2]
• 1656 – in chess, a piece as opposed to a pawn (obsolete after 1797).^[2]
• 1682 – a nobleman's son as a student at Oxford or Cambridge.^[2][4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A man of noble birth, rank or title; a peer or aristocrat.^[10][5][2]
2. (historical) A nobleman's son as a student at Oxford or Cambridge.^[2][4]
3. (obsolete, 1656–1797) In chess, a piece as distinguished from a pawn; usually in the plural.^[2][5][4]

Word family

• noblemanly

Related words

• noble
• man
• noblewoman
• nobility

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
8. ^ Stratmann, Francis Henry (1891), A Middle-English Dictionary, revised by Henry Bradley, Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
10. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins