Definition of "peerage" [peer•age]

• The rank, title, or jurisdiction of a peer or peeress; a duchy, marquisate, county, viscountcy, or barony. (noun)
• Peers and peeresses considered as a group. (noun)
• A book listing peers, peeresses, and their families. (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.

• "France which we call the peerage, and his intelligent legs rest on the velvet benches of the Luxembourg."
• "January 6th, 2010 at 2: 51 pm psuedononymous in nc: And things in America would be quite a bit more difficult, since it would require a Constitutional amendment (3/4 of the states), and the obvious analogue to elevating Liberals to the peerage is to create new states, and you need the approval of the Senate to do that."
• "If you have studied Debrett at all, you know as well as I do that the peerage is one of those old English ones which date back some six hundred years, and that the present Lady d'Alboukirk is a baroness in her own right, the title and estates descending to heirs-general."