milord

plural milords · alternative milor

1. UKhumorousobsoleteAn English nobleman, especially one traveling Europe in grand style; a wealthy British gentleman.

   Not since the year 17—, when milord Castlebrilliant's curricle was whirled to sea with her ladyship within, had there been such vehement weather.

   1919, Ronald Firbank, Valmouth, Duckworth, section 49

plural milords

1. alternativeAlternative form of m'lord.

   1986, Ben Elton & al., Blackadder II, 3: "Potato" Aah-ahhh! You have a woman’s hand, milord! I’ll wager these dainty pinkies never weighed anchor in a storm.

present singular third person milords · participle present milording · participle past milorded · past milorded

1. To address as “milord”.

   “[…]I must fetch the doctor for her, milord.” Quill’s eyebrows rose. “You’re hiding her? And no ‘milording’ me. I’m the same old Quill.”

   1998, Laurel Schunk, Death in Exile, Wichita, Kan.: St Kitts Press, →ISBN, →LCCN, pages 11–12

   3 more examples

   A few pauls a-piece, however, did the business, and after a few more tunes, and some more milordi and capitani, the musicians, finding no more prospect of pauls, departed, leaving the landlord to do the rest of the milording and captaining to the honored Americani.

   1834 May 1, “The Reefer’s First Cruise”, in H[enry] W[illiam] Herbert, editor, The American Monthly Magazine, volume III, number III, New York, N.Y.: […] Monson Bancroft, […] G. & C. & H. Carvill, […] and Peter Hill, […], page 189

   Poor, humble, unaspiring Mr. Dobbs was “Milorded,” to his great annoyance, by everybody, at the Parisian hotel; and monsieur the landlord thought it but right that the rich English “Milord” should pay for the superior accommodation himself and family received at “Le Grand Hôtel.”

   1854, Crotchet Crayon [pseudonym], “How Mrs. Dobbs arrived in Paris, and made a new acquaintance. […]”, in The Rival Houses of the Hobbs and Dobbs: or, Dress-Makers & Dress-Wearers, London: G. Routledge & Co., […], page 50

   To the ignorant Italians who milorded or miladied them, they were always anxious to explain that they “had no titles, and would be sorry to have any,”—that the members of the House of Lords were for the most part mere upstarts, and that the true nobility of England were the old land-owners,—the county families,—before whose names men only placed the plain Mr. and Mrs. by which they themselves, the Crawleys, preferred to be designated.

   1885, Antonio [Carlo Napoleone] Gallenga, “First Repentance. […]”, in Episodes of My Second Life. (American and English Experiences.), Philadelphia, Pa.: J. B. Lippincott & Co., page 275

plural Milords

1. A surname.