guerdon
Syllables: guer·donUK/ˈɡəː.dən//ˈɡɝ.dən/
guerdon noun: a reward, prize or recompense for a service; an accolade.
Noun
guerdon (plural guerdons)
- A reward, prize or recompense for a service; an accolade.
- For would she of her gentlenesse,
Withouten more, me ones kesse,
It were to me a great guerdoon.
Release of all my passion […]c. 1366, Geoffrey Chaucer, The Romaunt of the Rose, ll. 2607-10 - Is this the guerdon wherewithall ye quite my fruitfulnesse?
Is this the honor that ye gave for my plenteousnesse
And dutie done with true intent?1567, Ovid, “The Seconde Booke”, in Arthur Golding, transl., The XV. Bookes of P. Ouidius Naso, Entytuled Metamorphosis, […], London: […] Willyam Seres […], →OCLC, lines 361–63
- For would she of her gentlenesse,
Verb
guerdon (third-person singular simple present guerdons, present participle guerdoning, simple past and past participle guerdoned)
- To give such a reward to.
- And when thou see'st the Admiral ride by,
Discharge thy musket, and perform his death;
And then I'll guerdon thee with store of crowns.1593, Christopher Marlowe, The Massacre at Paris, I:ii - […] him we gave a costly bribe
To guerdon silence […]1847, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, The Princess, Book I
- And when thou see'st the Admiral ride by,
guerdon meaning in Tamil and Bengali
guerdon in Tamil
- மதிப்பூதியம்
guerdon in Bengali
- পুরস্কার, প্রতিদান
Examples of guerdon in a sentence
- "That will I do blithely," replied the Pilgrim, "and without guerdon; my oath, for a time, prohibits me from touching gold."1819 December 20 (indicated as 1820), Walter Scott, Ivanhoe; a Romance. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […]...
- I had some faint recollection of having a penny-piece in my waistcoat pocket, and, pleased with the service he had rendered to us, I gave it him as his guerdon.1826 April 22, “G.”, “The Dukedom (from ‘The News of Literature and Fashion, Science and Art.’)”, in The Spirit of the Times; or, Essence...
- Is this the guerdon of a free maiden—is this the price of a life’s passion?1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 73, in The History of Pendennis. […], volume (please specify |volume=I...
- Melanie might have given him his new coat but this sash was her gift, her own secret guerdon for him to wear into battle, something that would make him remember her every time he looked at it.1936 June 30, Margaret Mitchell, chapter XV, in Gone with the Wind, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company, →OCLC:
Forms of guerdon
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | guerdons |
| alternative form (obsolete) | gerdon |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | guerdons |
| present participle | guerdoning |
| past participle | guerdoned |
| past | guerdoned |
Origin of guerdon
From Middle English guerdon, guerdoun, gardone, from Old French guerdon, guerredon, guarredon, werdon, from Medieval Latin widerdōnum, alteration of widerlōnum, from West Germanic (whence Old High German widarlōn, Old English wiþerlēan), literally ‘back-payment’, with the second element assimilated to Latin dōnum (“gift”).
Words formed from guerdon
Questions about guerdon
- What does guerdon mean?
- Guerdon means a reward, prize or recompense for a service; an accolade.
- What is guerdon in Tamil?
- Guerdon in Tamil is மதிப்பூதியம். See Guerdon meaning in Tamil.
- How do you use guerdon in a sentence?
- "That will I do blithely," replied the Pilgrim, "and without guerdon; my oath, for a time, prohibits me from touching gold."
- What part of speech is guerdon?
- Guerdon can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce guerdon?
- Guerdon is pronounced /ˈɡəː.dən/ (UK).
- What is the plural of guerdon?
- The plural of guerdon is guerdons.
Words near guerdon in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: guerdon (page history and authors); guerdon (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); guerdon (Bengali Wiktionary) (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-guerdon.ogg.
Cite this entry: “guerdon.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/guerdon. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.