thegn
Origin of thegn
thane
or thegn
- Early English History. a member of any of several aristocratic classes of men ranking between earls and ordinary freemen, and granted lands by the king or by lords for military service.
- Scottish History. a person, ranking with an earl's son, holding lands of the king; the chief of a clan, who became one of the king's barons.
Origin of thane
Examples from the Web for thegn
Historical Examples
Dark was the scowl on the brow of every thegn, and a muttered "No, no: never the Norman!"
Harold, CompleteEdward Bulwer-Lytton
But now the word was thegn, though the status was much the same.
A History of EnglandCharles Oman
The thegn is the man who for one reason or another is a warrior.
Domesday Book and BeyondFrederic William Maitland
To be worthy of thegn-right may be one thing, to be a thegn, another.
Domesday Book and BeyondFrederic William Maitland
The thegn offers a heriot with a prayer that his will may stand.
Domesday Book and BeyondFrederic William Maitland
thegn
- a variant spelling of thane
thane
commonly thegn
- (in Anglo-Saxon England) a member of an aristocratic class, ranking below an ealdorman, whose status was hereditary and who held land from the king or from another nobleman in return for certain services
- (in medieval Scotland)
- a person of rank, often the chief of a clan, holding land from the king
- a lesser noble who was a Crown official holding authority over an area of land
Word Origin
Word Origin and History for thegn
n.
"military tenant of an Anglo-Saxon king," a modern revival first attested 1848; see thane.
thane
n.
Old English þegn "military follower," also "servant, attendant," from Proto-Germanic *thegnas (cf. Old Saxon thegan "follower, warrior, boy," Old Norse þegn "thane, freeman," Old High German thegan, German Degen "thane, warrior, hero"), from PIE *tek-no- (cf. Sanskrit takman "descendant, child," Greek teknon "child"), from root *tek- "to beget, give birth to" (cf. Greek tekos "child, the young of animals," tokos "childbirth, offspring, produce of money, interest"). Also used in Old English for "disciple of Christ." Specific sense of "man who ranks between an earl and a freeman" is late 15c.
The modern spelling is from Scottish, where early 13c. it came to mean "chief of a clan, king's baron," and it has predominated in English probably due to the influence of "Macbeth;" normal orthographic changes from Old English ðegn would have produced Modern English *thain. Some historians now use thegn to distinguish Anglo-Saxon thanes from Scottish thanes.