Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A lord or sovereign to whom allegiance and service are due according to feudal law.
- n. A vassal or subject owing allegiance and services to a lord or sovereign under feudal law.
- n. A loyal subject to a monarch.
- adj. Entitled to the loyalty and services of vassals or subjects: a liege lord.
- adj. Bound to give such allegiance and services to a lord or monarch.
- adj. Loyal; faithful.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Free; specifically, free from obligation to service except as within the relations of lord and vassal: as, a liege lord, a liege man (correlative terms implying protection on the one side and service on the other, as against all other claims).
- Of or pertaining to the tie reciprocally connecting vassal and chief: as, liege vassalage.
- n. A liegeman; a subject; a vassal; hence, a law-abiding citizen; a peaceably disposed person: as, to disturb the lieges.
- n. A liege lord; one to whom another is bound in fealty or vassalage; a sovereign lord or feudal superior; a lord paramount.
Wiktionary
- n. A free and independent person; specifically, a lord paramount; a sovereign.
- n. The subject of a sovereign or lord; a liegeman.
- adj. Sovereign; independent; having authority or right to allegiance; as, a liege lord.
- adj. Serving an independent sovereign or master; bound by a feudal tenure; obliged to be faithful and loyal to a superior, as a vassal to his lord; faithful; loyal; as, a liege man; a liege subject.
- adj. Full; perfect; complete; pure.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Sovereign; independent; having authority or right to allegiance.
- adj. serving an independent sovereign or master; bound by a feudal tenure; obliged to be faithful and loyal to a superior, as a vassal to his lord; faithful; loyal.
- adj. (Old Law) Full; perfect; complete; pure.
- n. A free and independent person; specif., a lord paramount; a sovereign.
- n. The subject of a sovereign or lord; a liegeman.
WordNet 3.0
- n. city in eastern Belgium; largest French-speaking city in Belgium
- adj. owing or owed feudal allegiance and service
- n. a feudal lord entitled to allegiance and service
- n. a person holding a fief; a person who owes allegiance and service to a feudal lord
Etymologies
- Middle English lege, lige, liege, from Anglo-Norman lige, from Old French liege ("liege, free"), from Middle High German ledic, ledec ("free, empty, vacant") (Modern German ledig ("unmarried")) from Proto-Germanic *liþugaz (“flexible, free, unoccupied”). Akin to Old Frisian leþeg, leþoch ("free"), Old English liþiġ ("flexible"), Old Norse liðugr ("free, unhindered"), Middle Dutch ledich ("idle, unemployed") (Dutch ledig ("empty") and leeg ("empty")), Middle English lethi ("unoccupied, at leisure"). (Wiktionary)
- Middle English, from Old French, entitled to feudal allegiance, from Late Latin laeticus, being a semifree colonist in Gaul, from laetus, a semifree colonist, of Germanic origin; see lē- in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“My liege is the only man within these borders who has only one wife.”
“Midtown Lunch has learned that Augustin’s Waffles, a New Jersey company that specializes in liege waffles from Belgium, will be starting up their own Waffle Truck in the next 4 to 5 weeks.”
“Mr. Nelson and his liege are the false prophets of sound, measured judgment.”
Nelson prolife amendment tabled: Nelson (D, NE) caving to follow. - Moe_Lane’s blog - RedState
“These fellows, who are ready to undertake any service, however criminal, for which they are paid, certainly do not deserve to be called liege subjects.”
“They said they were something called liege men of what I gather is a sort of warlord named Bjorn.”
“When she is forcibly enchanted by a man she is tailing for her faerie liege lord, she not only loses fourteen years of her life to being a fish, she loses everything she worked for in the human world, including her family.”
Rosemary and Rue: A Knight in Shining…Satin? « A Working Title
“My dreaded liege your are so awful … … on September 5, 2009 at 4: 31 pm Bonzo”
““My liege, a moment,” one of the guards hastened to say.”
“Now a one-armed scribe and a heavy drinker, Malgwyn rejects the half-life that his liege gave him.”
“As Toby tries to settle down, licking her wounds from her last escapades in Rosemary and Rue, she is asked by her liege, the Duke Sylvester Torquill of the Shadowed Hills to check on his [...]”
“Rosemary and Rue” by Seanan McGuire (Daw, 2009) « The BookBanter Blog
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘liege’.
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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New words
new words or spelling issues
voluble, Metagrobolize, salubrious, calumny, fugacity, withdrawal, bourse, hypertrophy, leitmotif, argot, improvident, damask and 238 more...
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big book gre
abase, abbess, abbey, abbot, abdicate, abdomen, abdominal, abduction, abed, aberration, abet, abeyance and 6691 more...
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Shakespeare.02
sprite, nonpareil, liege, transpose, benison, vantage, disburse, rapt, interdiction, harbinger, sheathe, purge and 3 more...
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(more or less) Temporary Urth List
Temporary list is temporary.
Collecting a few words here, which are then to be alloted to other lists.vassal, gnaw, putrescence, liege, pederasty, disseminate, loot, waning, fitful, hiatuse, plow, pious and 292 more...
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billy shakespeare's guide to good living
hurlyburly, nave, direful, whence, sooth, dwindle, tempest-tost, withal, selfsame, wrack, unfix, recompense and 142 more...
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curligirli0's Words
crapulous, swish, shiatsu, zen, xenoglossy, nincompoop, loquacious, pianissimo, onomatopoeia, imperturbable, silky, hosanas and 379 more...
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Actual and Spectulative Sburb Classes
A list of all known Heroic Classes available to players of the game Sburb within the Homestuck universe, as well as any other words I can think of which would theoretically adhere to the known guid...
heir, seer, knight, witch, maid, page, thief, mage, rogue, sylph, prince, bard and 116 more...
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NTDW1
template, modal, sublingual, tandem, polycentric, septuagenarian, token, irrevocable, denotive, augural, aberrant, phlebotomy and 1188 more...
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List of words to expand my vocabulary
does what it says on the tin, and is severely needed.
indolent, insolent, idly, divulge, tattle, benign, roguish, daintily, idle, dowdy, sordid, wanton and 242 more...
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Take Me To Your Whosit
About leaders, particularly the authority-figure at the top of the tree.
leader, chief, boss, cap'n, executive, president, head, tsar, alpha male, alpha female, conductor, dean and 127 more...
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the name of the rose
pleasing words I encounter whilst reading umberto eco's novel of the same name.
matins, lauds, prime, terce, sext, nones, vespers, compline, usurper, simoniac, heresiarch, malefactor and 230 more...
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Ulysses
This is a list of the more difficult English words found in James Joyce's Ulysses. It will continually be updated as I read along. The list is in reverse chronological order, meaning that the last ...
equine, untonsured, corpuscle, prelate, parapet, dactyl, jejune, lancet, jalap, barbican, valise, dewsilky and 377 more...
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nfk9595's Words
magnetohydrodynamics, bovine, epistle, gargantuan, kerfuffle, verbiage, morose, coup de main, elan, achtung, uber, verboten and 497 more...
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nether's list
adroit, recrudescent, ecclesiastical, canaille, philologian, ignoble, dilettante, vicegerant, gilt, enfiladed, somnambulism, gamin and 215 more...
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"letting go" words
words from the IE root orbh- and others words that change allegiance
orphan, robot, let, liege, allegiance, late, later, last, lassitude, alas, lenient, lenis and 41 more...
Tweets
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