Word.ws English Dictionary

second estate

second estate noun: the caste of nobility in medieval and early modern society, and in particular in France prior to 1789, as distinct from the clergy and the commoners.

Noun

second estate

  1. The caste of nobility in medieval and early modern society, and in particular in France prior to 1789, as distinct from the clergy and the commoners.
  2. The House of Lords.

Origin of second estate

See etymology at fourth estate.

Questions about second estate

What does second estate mean?
Second estate means the caste of nobility in medieval and early modern society, and in particular in France prior to 1789, as distinct from the clergy and the commoners.
What part of speech is second estate?
Second estate is a noun.

Words near second estate in the dictionary

  1. second division
  2. second divisions
  3. second down
  4. second downs
  5. Second Empire
  6. second estate
  7. second families
  8. second family
  9. second fiddle
  10. second fiddles
  11. second five-eighth

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: second estate (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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