Word.ws English Dictionary

liege

/liːd͡ʒ/

liege noun: a free and independent person; specifically, a lord paramount; a sovereign.

Noun

liege (plural lieges)

  1. A free and independent person; specifically, a lord paramount; a sovereign.
  2. A king or lord.
    • More health and happiness betide my liege / Than can my care-tuned tongue deliver him!1595 December 9 (first known performance), William Shakespeare, “The Life and Death of King Richard the Second”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to...
    • Kings, my liege, may take a lesson from him1826, [Walter Scott], Woodstock; Or, The Cavalier. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne and Co.] for Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Longman, Rees...
  3. The subject of a sovereign or lord; a liegeman.

Adjective

liege (not comparable)

  1. Sovereign; independent; having authority or right to allegiance.
    • a liege lord
    • She look'd as grand as doomsday and as grave: / And he, he reverenced his liege lady there;1847, Alfred Tennyson, “(please specify the page number, or |part=Prologue, I to VII, or conclusion)”, in The Princess: A Medley, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC
  2. Serving an independent sovereign or master; bound by a feudal tenure; obliged to be faithful and loyal to a superior, such as a vassal to his lord; faithful.
    • a liege man; a liege subject
  3. (obsolete) Full; perfect; complete; pure.
    • it was a release by Katherine de Ros in her liege widowhood to Sir Thomas de Stirkeland1908, Daniel Scott (of Penrith), Stricklands of Sizergh Castle

Proper noun capitalized: Liege

Liege

  1. (alternative) Alternative form of Liège, a city in Belgium.

Forms of liege

plurallieges

Plural of liege: lieges

Origin of liege

From Middle English liege, lege, lige, from Anglo-Norman lige, from Old French liege (“liege, free”), from Middle High German ledic, ledec (“free, empty, vacant”) (Modern German ledig (“unmarried”)) from Proto-Germanic *liþugaz (“flexible, free, unoccupied”). Akin to Old Frisian leþeg, leþoch (“free”), Old English liþiġ (“flexible”), Old Norse liðugr (“free, unhindered”), Old Saxon lethig (“idle”), Low German leddig (“empty”), Middle Dutch ledich (“idle, unemployed”) (Dutch ledig (“empty”) and leeg (“empty”)), Middle English lethi (“unoccupied, at leisure”). An alternate etymology traces the Old French word to Late Latin laeticus (“of or relating to a semifree colonist in Gaul”), from Latin laetus (“a semi-free colonist”), from Gothic *𐌻𐌴𐍄𐍃 (*lēts) (attested in derivatives such as 𐍆𐍂𐌰𐌻𐌴𐍄𐍃 (fralēts)), from Proto-Germanic *lētaz (“freeman; bondsman, serf”), from *lētaną (“to let; free; release”).

Words formed from liege

Words that rhyme with liege

Questions about liege

What does liege mean?
Liege means a free and independent person; specifically, a lord paramount; a sovereign.
What part of speech is liege?
Liege can be a noun, an adjective or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce liege?
Liege is pronounced /liːd͡ʒ/ (UK).
What is the plural of liege?
The plural of liege is lieges.

Words near liege in the dictionary

  1. liefsome
  2. lieftel
  3. Lieg
  4. liegance
  5. liegances
  6. liege
  7. liege lord
  8. liegedom
  9. liegedoms
  10. liegeful
  11. liegeless

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: liege (page history and authors); Liege (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: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Mélange a trois-liege.wav.

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