Meanings
alternative alder-liefest · alternative alderlievest
- archaicnot comparableobsoleteOften used as an epithet when addressing someone: most beloved.
It would be "my alderliefest this" and "my alderliefest that", enough to make even a dog's toes curl.
1983, Leon Rooke, chapter 1, in Shakespeare’s Dog […], Don Mills, Toronto, Ont.: Stoddart, →ISBN, page 162 more examples
VVith you mine Alder liefeſt Soueraigne, / Makes me the bolder to ſalute my King, / VVith ruder termes, ſuch as my vvit affoords, / And ouer ioy of heart doth miniſter.
1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies. […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene i], page 120, column 1Ye alderliefeſt Dublin hills! / On leaving you my full heart fills, / And fill mine eyes with tears, […]
1879, John Kingston James, Day Dreams, […], London: […] [Charles Whittingham at the Chiswick Press] for private circulation, →OCLC, page 31
Origin
- Proto-Indo-European*lewbʰ-“to admire, praise; to covet, desire; to love”
- Old Englishlēof“beloved, dear”
- Middle Englishalderlevest“dearest of all”
- Englishalderliefest
From Middle English alderlevest (“dearest of all”), from alder- (“of all, very”, prefix forming the superlative of adjectives or adverbs) (the genitive plural of al (“all, entirely, utterly, very”)) + lefest, levest (“dearest, most beloved”) (from lef, leve (“beloved or dear to someone”) (from Old English lēof (“beloved, dear”, adjective), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *lewbʰ- (“to admire, praise; to covet, desire; to love”)) + -est (suffix forming the superlative of adjectives and adverbs)). The English word is analysable as alder- ((archaic) prefix meaning ‘having the greatest degree of something, of all’) + lief (“(archaic) beloved, dear”, adjective) + -est (suffix forming the superlative of adjectives and adverbs). Cognates * Dutch allerliefst * German allerliebst
More words from Middle English, Old English, Proto-Indo-European
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
alderliefest. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/alderliefest
“alderliefest.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/alderliefest. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “alderliefest,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/alderliefest.
Source: alderliefest on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.