Word.ws English Dictionary

lordful

lordful adjective: having the manner or bearing of a lord; lordly; (by extension) authoritative; authoritarian; overbearing; bossy.

Adjective

lordful (comparative more lordful, superlative most lordful)

  1. Having the manner or bearing of a lord; lordly; (by extension) authoritative; authoritarian; overbearing; bossy
    • Actually such lessons occur in service of an older hierarchical form of love whereby men are still seen as lords and masters of their households and wives and children are seen as subservient and subordinate creatures. Eliot and Joyce are obviously critical of the demeaning and damaging...1997, Mark Spilka, Eight Lessons in Love: A Domestic Violence Reader - Page 2
    • The only thing he ever did wrong was his goodness and his not very faithful wife; his fat and 'lordful' wife who always wore a frown whenever someone visited them.2009, Liwhu Betiang, Beneath the rubble: fiction - Page 74

Examples of lordful in a sentence

  • But Steinbeck is intrigued by the lordful view; he wants to shock his readers into accepting the supposed wisdom of the older hierarchical arrangements, and even to accept their violent implications.1997, Mark Spilka, Eight Lessons in Love: A Domestic Violence Reader - Page 2:
  • Some husbands are too lordful over their wives and make them feel incarcerated in their marriage.2015, Daniel G. McCrillis, Th. D., Biblical Psychology: A Biblical Hand-book to the Human Mind:

Forms of lordful

comparativemore lordful
superlativemost lordful

Origin of lordful

From Middle English lordfulle, equivalent to lord + -ful.

Words formed from lordful

Questions about lordful

What does lordful mean?
Lordful means having the manner or bearing of a lord; lordly; (by extension) authoritative; authoritarian; overbearing; bossy.
How do you use lordful in a sentence?
But Steinbeck is intrigued by the lordful view; he wants to shock his readers into accepting the supposed wisdom of the older hierarchical arrangements, and even to accept their violent implications.
What part of speech is lordful?
Lordful is an adjective.

Words near lordful in the dictionary

  1. lordery
  2. lordess
  3. lordesses
  4. lordest
  5. lordeth
  6. lordful
  7. lordfully
  8. lordhood
  9. lordhoods
  10. Lordi
  11. lordie

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: lordful (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.

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