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seneschal

UK/ˈsɛnəʃəl/US/ˈsɛnəʃəl/
nounC2Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #14,854 of 15,258mostly written

Other forms: seneschals

A seneschal was the steward who ran a great household. The lord's seneschal, appointed seneschal, the seneschal's accounts.

The job was real administration: the seneschal held the accounts, ran the estates and gave justice in the lord's absence. It survives in French as senechal and in English only in historical writing.

Unknown authorUnknown author · Public domain

Definitions of seneschal

  1. 1nounseneschalThe steward who ran a great household.C2

    “The lord was away at war, so his seneschal managed the estate and its servants.”

seneschal is a steward.

Where it comes from

Frankish siniskalk means old servant, from words meaning old and servant.

  1. Proto-Germanic

    *siniskalkaz

  2. Frankish

    *siniskalk

  3. Medieval Latin

    siniscalcus

  4. Old French

    seneschal

  5. Middle English

    seneschal

  6. English, today

    seneschal

Built from

  • *skalkaz · Proto-Germanic — servant

From Middle English seneschal (recorded in English since 1393), from Old French seneschal, from Medieval Latin siniscalcus, from Frankish siniskalk, from Proto-Germanic siniskalkaz, from Proto-Germanic siniz (“senior”) + skalkaz (“servant”); latter term as in marshal. As an officer of the French crown, via French sénéchal.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire

Practise this word

seneschal in the wild

  • The Kingdom of Cyprus, as an offshoot of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, maintained many of the same offices, such as: seneschal, constable, marshal, admiral, Chamberlain, and chancellor.

    Officers of the Kingdom of Cyprus

  • In 1473, the seneschal, the crown's agent of order, was created for the county of Armagnac.

    Lectoure

  • The building out of which the seneschal operated, Seneschalcy of Armagnac, was built in the commune of Lectoure.

    Lectoure

  • The title approximately corresponds to seneschal and is borrowed from the Slavic title stolnik (from the word stol, "table") a person in charge of the royal table.

    Stolnic

  • Meanwhile, in court, the seneschal envies Lunete of her rising status and becoming Laudine's favourite advisor.

    Lunete

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

From Project Gutenberg, public domain. These sentences are from real books, shown to illustrate the word at work.