Word.ws English Dictionary

thanes

thanes is the plural of thane.

Meaning of thane

Noun

thane (plural thanes)

  1. (historical) A rank of nobility in pre-Norman England, roughly equivalent to baron.
    • Sonnes, Kinsmen, Thanes, / And you whose places are the nearest, know, / We will establish our Estate vpon / Our eldest, Malcolme, whom we name hereafter, / The Prince of Cumberland: […]c. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount...

See all 2 meanings of thane

Questions about thanes

What is thanes the plural of?
Thanes is the plural of thane.

Words near thanes in the dictionary

  1. thanedoms
  2. thanehood
  3. thaneland
  4. thanelands
  5. thanely
  6. thanes
  7. thaneship
  8. thaneships
  9. thaness
  10. thanesses
  11. Thanet

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: thanes (page history and authors); thane (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: “thanes.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/thanes. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.