Word.ws English Dictionary

earldom

/ˈəɹldəm/

earldom noun: the rank of being an earl.

Noun

earldom (plural earldoms)

  1. The rank of being an earl.
    • And, look when I am king, claim thou of me / The earldom of Hereford, and all the movables / Whereof the king my brother was possess'd.c. 1593 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Richard the Third: […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...
  2. The territory controlled by an earl.

Forms of earldom

pluralearldoms

Origin of earldom

From Middle English erldom, from Old English eorldōm, equivalent to earl + -dom. Compare English jarldom. Cognate also with Scots eirldome, ȝerledom, erldom (“earldom”).

Questions about earldom

What does earldom mean?
Earldom means the rank of being an earl.
What part of speech is earldom?
Earldom is a noun.
How do you pronounce earldom?
Earldom is pronounced /ˈəɹldəm/ (US).
What is the plural of earldom?
The plural of earldom is earldoms.

Words near earldom in the dictionary

  1. Earl Stonham
  2. Earl's Court
  3. earlandite
  4. earlap
  5. earlaps
  6. earldom
  7. earldoms
  8. earldorman
  9. earldormen
  10. earle
  11. Earlene

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: earldom (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-earldom.wav.

Cite this entry: “earldom.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/earldom. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.