Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun An attendant, servant, or lesser official in a royal or noble household.
- noun A yeoman of the guard.
- noun A petty officer performing chiefly clerical duties in the US Navy.
- noun An assistant or other subordinate, as of a sheriff.
- noun A diligent, dependable worker.
- noun A farmer who cultivates his own land, especially a member of a former class of small freeholders in England.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A retainer; a guard.
- noun A gentleman attendant in a royal or noble household, ranking between a sergeant and a groom: as, yeoman for the month, a butler; yeoman of the crown; yeoman usher: applied also to attendants of lower grade: as, yeoman feuterer (seefeuterer); yeoman of the chamber; yeoman of the wardrobe. See also phrase yeoman of the guard, below.
- noun One holding a subordinate position, as an attendant or assistant, journeyman, etc.
- noun In old English law, one having free land of forty shillings by the year (previously five nobles), who was thereby qualified to serve on juries, vote for knights of the shire, and do any other act for which the law required one who was “probus et legalis homo” (Blackstone, Com., I. xii.); hence, in recent English use, one owning (and usually himself cultivating) a small landed property; a freeholder.
- noun In the United States navy, an appointed petty officer who has charge of the stores in his department.
- noun A member of the yeomanry cavalry. See
yeomanry , 4.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun A common man, or one of the commonly of the first or most respectable class; a freeholder; a man free born.
- noun obsolete A servant; a retainer.
- noun engraving A yeoman of the guard; also, a member of the yeomanry cavalry.
- noun (Naut.) An interior officer under the boatswain, gunner, or carpenters, charged with the stowage, account, and distribution of the stores.
- noun one of the bodyguard of the English sovereign, consisting of the hundred yeomen, armed with partisans, and habited in the costume of the sixteenth century. They are members of the royal household.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun An
official providing honorable service in aroyal or highnoble household , ranking between asquire and apage . - noun historical A
former class of smallfreeholders whofarm their ownland ; acommoner of good standing. - noun A
subordinate ,deputy ,aide , orassistant . - noun A
Yeoman Warder . - noun A
clerk in theUS navy , andUS Coast Guard . - noun nautical In a vessel of war, the person in charge of the storeroom.
- noun A member of the Yeomanry Cavalry officially chartered in 1794 originating around the 1760s.
- noun A member of the Imperial Yeomanry officially created in 1890s and renamed in 1907.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun officer in the (ceremonial) bodyguard of the British monarch
- noun in former times was free and cultivated his own land
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Goodman Mascall, Goodman Cockswet, etc., and in matters of law these and the like are called thus, _Giles Jewd, yeoman; Edward Mountford, yeoman; James Cocke, yeoman; Harry Butcher, yeoman_, etc.; by which addition they are exempt from the vulgar and common sorts.
Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) Thomas Malory Jean Froissart
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The plain Anglo-Saxon yeoman strain which was really the basis of his nature now asserted itself in the growing conservatism of ideas which marked the last forty years of his life.
A History of English Literature Robert Huntington Fletcher
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The word yeoman was under stood in the old English sense of the small independent farmers.
The Lincoln Story Book Henry Llewellyn Williams
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The word yeoman was under stood in the old English sense of the small independent farmers.
The Lincoln Story Book Williams, Henry L 1907
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The word yeoman is often used as an equivalent term and sometimes the original Scandinavian form _bonde_ is used in English.
Fritiofs Saga Esaias Tegn��r 1814
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: one unduly fearful of what is foreign and especially of people of foreign origin yeoman
Archive 2003-10-01 M-mv 2003
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Beefeaters are originally called yeoman warders, originally assigned in the 15th century to guard high profile prisoners.
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“Excuse me, Admiral, I have Captain Bonelli on the secure line,” called the yeoman from the doorway of his office.
Pressure Point Dick Couch 1992
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“Excuse me, Admiral, I have Captain Bonelli on the secure line,” called the yeoman from the doorway of his office.
Pressure Point Dick Couch 1992
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I may instance his derivation of dismal from Latin dies mali, unpropitious days, derided by Trench, but now known to be substantially correct, and his intelligent conjecture that the much discussed word yeoman 'seemeth to be one word made by contraction of yong man,' an etymology quite recently revived — July 1921 — by the Oxford Dictionary.
On Dictionaries 1969
seanahan commented on the word yeoman
Used as a way to get someone's attention, like "Yeo, man, get over here".
June 25, 2007
uselessness commented on the word yeoman
*smirk*
June 25, 2007
seanahan commented on the word yeoman
Hey, if nobody leaves a comment, I feel forced to say something.
June 26, 2007
bilby commented on the word yeoman
Profound lexical collocation with 'of the guard'.
August 19, 2008
wackyvorlon commented on the word yeoman
It does yeoman's service, as they say.
September 23, 2008