Nearby Words

yeoman

[yoh-muhn] Example Sentences Origin

yeo·man

[yoh-muhn] noun, plural -men, adjective
noun
1.
a petty officer in a navy, having chiefly clerical duties in the U.S. Navy.
2.
British. a farmer who cultivates his own land.
3.
History/Historical. one of a class of lesser freeholders, below the gentry, who cultivated their own land, early admitted in England to political rights.
4.
Archaic.
a.
a servant, attendant, or subordinate official in a royal or other great household.
b.
a subordinate or assistant, as of a sheriff or other official or in a craft or trade.
adjective
5.
of, pertaining to, composed of, or characteristic of yeomen: the yeoman class.
6.
performed or rendered in a loyal, valiant, useful, or workmanlike manner, especially in situations that involve a great deal of effort or labor: He did a yeoman job on the problem.

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Yeoman is always a great word to know.
So is ort. Does it mean:
a stew of meat, vegetables, potatoes, etc.
a scrap or morsel of food left at a meal.

Origin:
1300–50; Middle English yeman, yoman, probably reduced forms of yengman, yongman, yungman, with similar sense; see young, man1
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Example Sentences
  • Raincoats and umbrellas were put into yeoman service.
  • They're so opposed accountability, you'd think they were merchants, industrialists or yeoman farmers.
  • Pakula's book is a yeoman work of historical research, with fact grinding against fact.
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Collins
World English Dictionary
yeoman (ˈjəʊmən)
 
n , pl -men
1.  history
 a.  a member of a class of small freeholders of common birth who cultivated their own land
 b.  an assistant or other subordinate to an official, such as a sheriff, or to a craftsman or trader
 c.  an attendant or lesser official in a royal or noble household
2.  (in Britain) another name for yeoman of the guard
3.  (modifier) characteristic of or relating to a yeoman
4.  a petty officer or noncommissioned officer in the Royal Navy or Marines in charge of signals
 
[C15: perhaps from yongman young man]

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
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Etymonline
Word Origin & History

yeoman
c.1300, "attendant in a noble household," of unknown origin, perhaps a contraction of O.E. iunge man "young man," or from an unrecorded O.E. *geaman, equivalent of O.Fris. gaman "villager," from O.E. -gea "district, village," cognate with O.Fris. ga, ge, from P.Gmc. *gaujan. Sense of "commoner who cultivates
EXPAND
his land" is recorded from early 15c.; also the third order of fighting men (late 14c., below knights and squires, above knaves), hence yeomen's service "good, efficient service" (c.1600). Meaning "naval petty officer in charge of supplies" is first attested 1660s. Yeowoman first recorded 1852: "Then I am yeo-woman O the clumsy word!" [Tennyson, "The Foresters"]
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
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Encyclopedia Britannica
Encyclopedia

yeoman

in English history, a class intermediate between the gentry and the labourers; a yeoman was usually a landholder but could also be a retainer, guard, attendant, or subordinate official. The word appears in Middle English as yemen, or yoman, and is perhaps a contraction of yeng man or yong man, meaning young man, or attendant. Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (late 14th century) depicts a yeoman who is a forester and a retainer. Most yeomen of the later Middle Ages were probably occupied in cultivating the land; Raphael Holinshed, in his Chronicles (1577), described them as having free land worth 6 (originally 40 shillings) annually and as not being entitled to bear arms

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Encyclopedia Britannica, 2008. Encyclopedia Britannica Online.
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