peerage

English

Etymology

From Middle English perage, equivalent to peer +‎ -age. Doublet of parage.

Noun

peerage (countable and uncountable, plural peerages)

1. Peers as a group; the titled nobility or aristocracy.
2. The rank or title of a peer or peeress.
   • 1904–1905, Baroness Orczy [i.e., Emma Orczy], “The Tremarn Case”, in The Case of Miss Elliott, London: T[homas] Fisher Unwin, published 1905, →OCLC; republished as popular edition, London: Greening & Co., 1909, OCLC 11192831, quoted in The Case of Miss Elliott (ebook no. 2000141h.html), Australia: Project Gutenberg of Australia, February 2020:

     “Two or three months more went by ; the public were eagerly awaiting the arrival of this semi-exotic claimant to an English peerage, and sensations, surpassing those of the Tichbourne case, were looked forward to with palpitating interest. […]”

3. A book listing such people and their families.

Synonyms

• peerdom
• peership

Translations

peers as a group

• Bulgarian: перове (bg) m pl (perove)
• German: Adel (de) m
• Portuguese: pariato (pt) m

the rank or title of a peer

• French: pairie (fr) f
• German: Adelstitel (de) m
• Irish: tiarnas m
• Portuguese: pares (pt) pl
• Spanish: pairía f, título nobiliario (es) m

book listing peers and their families

• Norwegian: adelskalender (no) m

See also

• aristocracy
• bunyip aristocracy