eldership

From elder +‎ -ship. The Lithuanian sense is a calque of Lithuanian seniūnija.

• enPR: ĕlʹdərshĭp, IPA^(key): /ˈɛldɚʃɪp/

eldership (countable and uncountable, plural elderships)

1. The position of being elder or senior; seniority, precedence of birth, primogeniture.
   • 1549, R. Parsons, Confer. Success, volume I, chapter vi, page 128:

     Primogenitura, or eldership of birth, was greatly respected by God.

   • 1667, Dryden, Ind. Emperor, chapter i, page 11:

     My claim to her by Eldership I prove.

   • 1754, Richardson, Grandison, volume I, chapter v, page 19:

     Her sister addressed her always by the word Child, with an air of eldership.

   • 1786, Thomas Parnell, The Poetical Works of Dr. Thomas Parnell:

     Though Truth and Falsehood are as twins ally’d, There’s eldership on Truth’s delightful side.

   • 1829, Walter Raleigh, The works of sir Walter Ralegh:

     It followeth now to entreat how the world began to receive rule and government, which, while it had scarcity of people, underwent no other dominion than paternity and eldership.

   • 1838, Arnold, Hist. Rome, volume I, page 274:

     [By Roman law] all children inherited their father’s estate in equal portions, without distinction of sex or eldership.

2. (Can we verify⁽⁺⁾ this sense?) (nonce word, as a mock title of honour) The personality of an elderly person.
   • 1748, Richardson, Clarissa, volume IV, published 1811, page 90:

     So irresistible to their elderships to be flattered.

3. The office or position of elder in a church.
   • 1577, Harrison, England, II.v, published 1877, chapter i, page 109:

     The office of eldership is equallie distributed betweene the bishop and the minister.

   • 1655, Fuller, Ch. Hist., volume IX, chapter vi, § 52:

     He was deposed from his Eldership.

   • 1902, John Buchan, “The Outgoing of the Tide”, in The Watcher by the Threshold, and other tales:

     When I came first to Caulds I sought to prevail upon him to accept the eldership, but he aye put me by, and when I heard his tale I saw that he had done wisely.

4. The collective body of (ecclesiastical) elders; a body or court of elders, a presbytery.
   • 1557, “First Epistle to Timothy”, in New Testament, Geneva, chapter iv, verse 14:

     That gyft, which was geuen thee by prophecie with the laying on of the handes, by the Eldership.

   • 1634–1646, Row, Hist. Kirk, published 1824, page 66:

     They that tyrannize not over, but be subject to their particulare elderships.

   • 1721, Wodrow, Corr., volume II, published 1843, page 568:

     Do you not lay in one scale the minister against the whole eldership in the other?

   • 1828, E. Irving, Last Days, page 151:

     As office-bearers in the church we are an unholy and an unworthy eldership.

   • 1885, Edgar, Old Ch. Life Scotl., page 189:

     All the courts of the Church might be called either Presbyteries or Elderships.

5. (Can we verify⁽⁺⁾ this sense?) The smallest administrative division in Lithuania, equivalent to a ward.

   Synonym: elderate

   • 2010, Clive Carpenter, “Lithuania: Government”, in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland (World and its peoples. Europe; 8), New York: Marshall Cavendish, →ISBN, →LCCN, page 1,096/2:

     The local governmental system in Lithuania has passed through several changes since the restoration of independence, and its future is still being debated. There are three levels of local government: apskritys (plural apskritis, usually translated as “counties”); municipalities; and elderates, sometimes given as elderships.

• James A. H. Murray et al., editors (1884–1928), “Eldership”, in A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (Oxford English Dictionary), volume III (D–E), London: Clarendon Press, →OCLC, page 73, column 2.