landlord, n.
(ˈlændlɔːd)
Also 6 land(i)slord.
[f. land n.1 + lord n. OE. had landhláford, but the mod. word is a new formation.]
1. a. Originally, a lord or owner of land; in recorded use applied only spec. to the person who lets land to a tenant. Hence (perh. already in 16th c.) in widened sense (as the correlative of tenant): A person of whom another person holds any tenement, whether a piece of land, a building or part of a building.
| a 1000 in Earle Land Charters (1888) 376 æt ælcum were ðe binnan ðam .xxx. hidan is ᵹebyreð æfre se oðer fisc ðam landhlaforde. c 1000 Laws of Edgar Suppl. c. 11 in Schmid Gesetze 196 Healde se land-hlaford þæt forstolene orf..oð þæt se aᵹenfriᵹea þæt ᵹeacsiᵹe. 1419 Liber Albus 192 b (Rolls) I. 221 Le lessour, appelle ‘landlorde’. 1455–6 Gregory Chron. (Camden) 199 The Lombardys..toke grete old mancyons in Wynchester..and causyd the londe lordys to do grete coste in reparacyons. 1552 in Vicary's Anat. (1888) App. iii. ii. 152 Suche rate as thei paye in yerely rent..to the landelordes therof. 1553 T. Wilson Rhet. 15 Would servauntes obey their masters..the tenaunt his landlorde. 1557 F. Seager Sch. Virtue 1071 in Babees Bk., Ye that be landlordes and haue housen to let. 1587 Sc. Acts Jas. VI (1814) III. 462/1 Þe landislordes and baillies vpoun quhais landis and in quhais Jurisdictioun þai duell. c 1590 Greene Fr. Bacon x. 11, I am the lands-lord keeper of thy holds. 1593 Shakes. Rich. II, ii. i. 113 Landlord of England art thou, and not King. 1662 Stillingfl. Orig. Sacr. iii. iii. §1 His Landlord may dispossess him of all he hath upon displeasure. 1701 De Foe Orig. Power People Misc. (1703) 157 If the King was universal Landlord, he ought to be universal Governor of Right. 1809 Lamb Let. to Coleridge 7 June, I have been turned out of my chambers in the Temple by a landlord who wanted them for himself. 1818 Cruise Digest (ed. 2) I. 282 Six months notice to quit must be given by a landlord to his tenant at will. 1876 Freeman Norm. Conq. V. xxiv. 381 The doctrine was established that the King was the supreme landlord. 1878 Jevons Prim. Pol. Econ. 92 The laws concerning landlord and tenant have been made by landlords. |
b. fig. (said of God.)
| a 1635 Corbet Poems (1807) 6 It wounded me the Land⁓lord of all times Should let long lives and leases to their crimes. 1676 W. Hubbard Happiness of People 59 It is no wonder if God our great Land-lord, layes his arrest upon our tillage. |
2. a. In extended sense: The person in whose house one lodges or boards for payment; one's ‘host’. b. The master of an inn, an innkeeper.
| a 1674 Clarendon Hist. Reb. xiii. §86 He new dressed himself, changing clothes with his landlord. 1692 Luttrell Brief Rel. (1857) II. 411 His landlords daughter testified that [etc.]. 1724 Swift Drapier's Lett. i. Wks. 1761 III. 21 Suppose you go to an alehouse with that base money and the landlord gives you a quart for four of those half⁓pence. 1774 Goldsm. Retal. 3 If our landlord supplies us with beef and with fish. 1777 Sheridan Trip Scarb. i. i, I suppose, sir, I must charge the landlord to be very particular where he stows this? 1870 Daily News 16 Apr., The word landlord is never used here [sc. New England] in its primary or English signification, and is applied only to the keeper of a tavern or boarding house. |
3. A host or entertainer (in private). Chiefly Sc.
| 1725 De Foe Voy. round World (1840) 65 Which their new landlords took very kindly. 1858 Ramsay Remin. Ser. i. (1860) 256 Persons still persist among us in calling the head of the family, or the host, the landlord. 1864 Burton Scot Abr. I. i. 26 Not so satisfactory..as the confiding landlord expects it to be. |
4. attrib. and Comb.
| 1845 Douglas Jerrold's Shilling Mag. I. 515 Judge-made law may be bad, but landlord-made law is worse. 1880 ‘Mark Twain’ Tramp Abroad 586 The landlord-apprentice serves as call-boy, then as under-waiter. 1908 Daily Chron. 26 June 5/7 With an air of detachment, as though he were not addressing a landlord-ridden assembly. 1924 R. Graves Mock Beggar Hall 72 Waiting the landlord-absentee's return. 1959 Good Food Guide 383 Both landlord-chef and waiter are Spanish. 1963 Times Lit. Suppl. 17 May 350/5 The parasitic landlord-usurers had to be destroyed as a class. |