Definition of "ealdorman" [ealdorman]

• The chief magistrate of a district in Anglo-Saxon England. (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.

• "You are the man I need as what you would call the ealdorman there."
• "It was he who was so good to the monks, helping to defend them against the "ealdorman" of the Mercians, and others who were turning them out: he also helped to found the Abbey of Ely."
• "We have in the "Battle of Maldon" a great patriotic poem, written about the "ealdorman" [H] of the East Angles, Byrthnoth, or Brihtnoth, who stood so valiantly against the Danes."