Word.ws English Dictionary

raise to the ermine

raise to the ermine verb: to ennoble; to appoint someone to the House of Lords or the judiciary.

Verb

raise to the ermine (third-person singular simple present raises to the ermine, present participle raising to the ermine, simple past and past participle raised to the ermine)

  1. (Commonwealth) To ennoble; to appoint someone to the House of Lords or the judiciary.
    • THE Times, in a late article on the judicial system, in reference to the objection that, 'by multiplying judicial officers an inferior order of men must be raised to the ermine,' remarked that, if fifty years ago it was easy to select fifteen judges from the mass of practising barristers, it ought...1879, The Law Journal, page 111
    • Burnet styles him "this vicious drunkard raised to the ermine." Evelyn terms him "most ignorant but most daring cruel and a slave to the Court"1907, Joshua James Foster, The Stuarts: Being Outlines of the Personal History of the Family

Forms of raise to the ermine

third-person singular presentraises to the ermine
present participleraising to the ermine
past participleraised to the ermine
pastraised to the ermine

Origin of raise to the ermine

Since ermine robes were traditionally worn by members of the House of the Lords, and by high-ranking judges in the English courts.

Questions about raise to the ermine

What does raise to the ermine mean?
Raise to the ermine means to ennoble; to appoint someone to the House of Lords or the judiciary.
What part of speech is raise to the ermine?
Raise to the ermine is a verb.
What is the past tense of raise to the ermine?
The past tense of raise to the ermine is raised to the ermine.

Words near raise to the ermine in the dictionary

  1. raise the specter
  2. raise the spectre
  3. raise the stakes
  4. raise the white flag
  5. raise the wind
  6. raise to the ermine
  7. raise to the purple
  8. raise unshirted hell
  9. raise up
  10. raiseable
  11. raised

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: raise to the ermine (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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