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Definition of "seigniory" [seign•ior•y]

  • The power, rank, or estate of a feudal lord. Also called signory. (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 "seigniory" in a sentence
  • "Sometimes during war the seignior's wife and daughters were reduced to plowing in the fields and laboring with the women servants at the harvest; but ordinarily the life at the seigniory was a life of petty grandeur, with such style as the backwoods afforded."
  • "Influenced by the liberal doctrines of the Enlightenment, German reformers tried to accelerate and regulate this process by limiting seignorial dues and services in hopes that liberation from the most oppressive aspects of seignorialism and a larger stake in the produce of a seigniory would encourage peasants to work harder."
  • "It did not properly make a part of the dominions of the Duke of Burgundy, but had been placed in his hands in pawn or in pledge, for the repayment of a considerable sum of money, due to Charles by the Emperor Sigismund of Austria, to whom the seigniory of the place belonged in property."