Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A reward; recompense.
- transitive verb To reward.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A reward; requital; recompense.
- To give a guerdon to; reward.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun A reward; requital; recompense; -- used in both a good and a bad sense.
- transitive verb rare To give guerdon to; to reward; to be a recompense for.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun now literary A
reward ,prize orrecompense for aservice ; anaccolade . - verb transitive To give such a reward to.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a reward or payment
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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The gods were wroth at so presumptuous an offer, but when they would have indignantly driven the stranger from their presence, Loki urged them to make a bargain which it would be impossible for the stranger to keep, and so they finally told the architect that the guerdon should be his, provided the fortress were finished in the course of a single winter, and that he accomplished the work with no other assistance than that of his horse Svadilfare.
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The 13-year-old boy aced "guerdon" to win the 81st edition of the bee, held in the nation's capital.
Meet the Bees 2008
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Thanks to the school of scientific philosophers he favored, he knew the biological significance of love; but by a refined process of the same scientific reasoning he reached the conclusion that the human organism achieved its highest purpose in love, that love must not be questioned, but must be accepted as the highest guerdon of life.
Chapter 23 2010
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“Then dirt and weather-beat shall be your guerdon of honour,”
Chapter 39 2010
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The winning words in recent competitions have included: pococurante; autochthonous; appoggiatura; ursprache; serrefine; guerdon; Laodicean.
Archive 2010-06-01 Rene Meertens 2010
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Lors des championnats les plus récents, les mots qui ont permis aux gagnants de remporter la victoire ont été pococurante, autochthonous, appoggiatura, ursprache, serrefine, guerdon et Laodicean.
Archive 2010-07-01 Rene Meertens 2010
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The winning words in recent competitions have included: pococurante; autochthonous; appoggiatura; ursprache; serrefine; guerdon; Laodicean.
The American Spelling Bee Rene Meertens 2010
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Constructing new legislation is always difficult, but I propose a simple starting point for immigration selection: Anyone who can spell guerdon is in!
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When Sameer Mishra correctly spelled guerdon last May to win the 2008 Scripps National Spelling Bee, he became the sixth Indian-American winner in the past 10 years.
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People also gathered round this silver-and-nickel-alloy guerdon to meet its guardian: Mike Bolt.
The Magazine: Culture and Celebrity Beinner, Ron 2009
oroboros commented on the word guerdon
"Something one has earned or gained." The winning word for the 2008 Scripps National Spelling Bee competition.
June 1, 2008
fio_smiles commented on the word guerdon
Origin:
"reward, recompense" (now only poetic), 1366, from Old French. guerdon, from Medieval Latin. widerdonum, from Old High German widarlon (reward);
From: http://www.etymonline.com/abbr.php
June 13, 2008
bilby commented on the word guerdon
"How could anyone look at the happiness of the Beverley sisters, dolled up for the palace, and propose to snatch their prize away? Why be so cruel, when they have sung so lustily and for so long, and so well deserved their tinny guerdon?"
- Boris Johnson, 'Elect the Lords -- and stop our gongs going for a song', Daily Telegraph, 29 March 2002.
November 24, 2008
rolig commented on the word guerdon
Of all tales 't is the saddest – and more sad,
Because it makes us smile: his hero 's right,
And stil pursues the right; – to curb the bad
His only object, and 'gainst odds to fight
His guerdon: 't is his virtue makes him mad!
But his adventures form a sorry sight;
A sorrier still is the great moral taught
By that real epic unto all who have thought.
– Byron, Don Juan, Canto 13 (about Don Quixote, aka Don Kwix-oat)
April 21, 2013