landlord

English

Etymology

From Middle English londlord, landlorde, from Old English landhlāford, equivalent to land +‎ lord. Cognate with Scots landlaird, Middle Low German lantlord (“homeowner, landlord”).

Pronunciation

  • (UK) IPA(key): /ˈlænd.lɔːd/
  • (US) IPA(key): /ˈlæn(d).lɔɹd/
  • Audio (General Australian):(file)

Noun

landlord (plural landlords)

  1. A person that leases real property; a lessor.
    Synonyms: lessor, lease provider, leaser (informal)
    Antonyms: tenant, lessee
    Hyponyms: sublessor, underlessor, sublandlord, underlandlord, subletter, underletter, (informal) subleaser, underleaser
    Coordinate term: landlady (a female landlord)
    • 1593, anonymous author, The Life and Death of Iacke Straw […], Act I:
      Brethren, brethren, it were better to haue this communitie,
      Then to haue this difference in degrees:
      The landlord his rent, the lawyer his fees.
      So quickly the poore mans ſubſtance is ſpent […]
  2. (chiefly British) The owner or manager of a public house.
    Synonym: publican
    • 1980, AA Book of British Villages, Drive Publications Ltd, page 102:
      When asked to explain why he became a landlord, he told the Archbishop of York it was so he could close the pub on Sundays, and suppress the profane language and singing that came through the bar windows.
  3. (surfing, slang, with "the") A shark, imagined as the owner of the surf to be avoided.
    • 2004, Drew Kampion, publisher's blurb for, Stories from the Surf – The Lost Coast‎[1]:
      the lurking presence of “The Landlord”

Derived terms

Verb

landlord (third-person singular simple present landlords, present participle landlording, simple past and past participle landlorded)

  1. (transitive, rare) To lease real property; to act as a lessor.
    • 1920, Russian Liberation Committee, The New Russia, Volume 12, page 45:
      All kinds of "Dulishevskis" were "landlording" in Tisza's time, and have continued under the Communists.
    • 1955, Milton Ralph Stern, The Theme and Craft of Herman Melville, The Fine Hammered Steel, page 239:
      cannot admit realization of realities without admitting a changed view of the world she landlords.
    • 1972, John Sewell, Up Against City Hall, page 143:
      Middlemen had fairly steady relationships with Meridian; the same people were landlording houses in all the places where Meridian was assembling land: West St Jamestown, Homewood and Suffolk, Dundas and Sherbourne, George Street.
    • 2007 March 12, Brian Sharrock, “Searching for I.D. re historic poster”, in sci.military.naval‎[2] (Usenet):
      I can recall many pubs in Gosport which were 'landlorded' by retired Navy personnel and which featured ephemera such as Recruiting Posters, uplifting propoganda.
    • 2013, Michael K. Reynolds, Flight of the Earls, An Heirs of Ireland Novel, page 190:
      He floated through these streets scattered with rubbish, beggars, and thieves as if he landlorded the entire city, owning not only the buildings and the stores but the people themselves.

Translations

See also

This article is issued from Wiktionary. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.