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Definition of "baronage" [bar•on•age]

  • The peers of a kingdom considered as a group. (noun)
  • Barons considered as a group. (noun)
  • The rank or dignity of a baron. (noun)
  • A list of barons. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Use "baronage" in a sentence
  • "So, while in most of the new monarchies of Europe the subjection or humiliation of the baronage was a primary article of policy, John tried to win his way by lavish gifts of land, while resolutely checking feudalism in government, curtailing local immunities, and guarding the liberties of the towns against noble usurpers."
  • "This concept of aristocracy was highly flattering to an already dominant elite, which, since the eleventh century, had been called the 'baronage', 'nobility' and latterly 'the peerage'."
  • "Warden, the young wife of John Van Warden, clad in rags, with marred and scarred and toil-calloused hands, bending over the campfire and doing scullion work-she, Vesta, who had been born to the purple to greatest baronage of wealth the world has ever known."