droit du seigneur

American  

[drwa dy se-nyœr] / drwa dü sɛˈnyœr /

noun

1. the supposed right claimable by a feudal lord to have sexual relations with the bride of a vassal on her first night of marriage.

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droit du seigneur British  

/ drwa dy sɛɲœr /

noun

1. in feudal times, the right of a lord to have sexual intercourse with a vassal's bride on her wedding night

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Etymology

Origin of droit du seigneur

1815–25; < French: literally, right of the lord

Example Sentences

So I could not have been more thrilled when #MeToo ripped away the curtain on the murky transgressions and diminishments that women had endured in the droit du seigneur era.

From New York Times

From the medieval droit du seigneur to the Hollywood casting couch, sexual harassment has a long, tawdry history.

From Los Angeles Times

But then Daniel Sturridge simultaneously scored a superb goal and stepped on a metaphorical rake and the whole club was hit by unwanted reminders of every one of their vulnerabilities: Sturridge himself immediately pulled up lame; Adam Lallana injured his thigh; Barcelona tried to claim droit du seigneur on Phillipe Coutinho; new Chinese owners strengthened Southampton’s grip on Virgil van Dijk; and Georginio Wijnaldum’s head shrunk into his neck just as he was about to clear a corner at Watford.

From The Guardian

A politically minded caper by the Russian writer and dissident Boris Akunin, known for his detective novels, it starts with a dissolute Hamlet exercising a little droit du seigneur, groping an alarmed Ophelia in plain sight of her father and brother.

From New York Times

But the way the campaign played out, with the release of the tape, it was almost as if people were talking about droit du seigneur all over again.

From New York Times