Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun An English militiaman of the Saxon period; often a land worker called to arms in support of the King or a local Lord. The fyrdmen were usually armed with either swords or spears.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Old English fyrdmann, fierdmann ("warrior"), from fierd ("army") + mann ("man"). More at ferd, man.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word fyrdman.

Examples

  • If one opens a novel and encounters men wearing chausses and braies, women wearing wimples and bliauts, dinner menus featuring manchet loaves and angel bread, reeves collecting feorm, a fyrdman carrying a seax or a musician playing a rebec, it’s immediately apparent that the story is set in a world that is not the same as the modern world, where people dress and act and perhaps think differently.

    Archaic terminology in historical fiction Carla 2006

  • If one opens a novel and encounters men wearing chausses and braies, women wearing wimples and bliauts, dinner menus featuring manchet loaves and angel bread, reeves collecting feorm, a fyrdman carrying a seax or a musician playing a rebec, it’s immediately apparent that the story is set in a world that is not the same as the modern world, where people dress and act and perhaps think differently.

    Archive 2006-08-01 Carla 2006

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.