noblesse

See also: Noblesse

English

Etymology

From Anglo-Norman noblesse, noblesce et al., Old French noblace, nobleche et al., from noble (“noble”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /nə(ʊ)ˈblɛs/

Noun

noblesse (usually uncountable, plural noblesses)

1. The quality of being noble; nobleness.
   • c. 1395, Geoffrey Chaucer, ‘The Clerk's Tale’, The Canterbury Tales, Ellesmere ms:

     I yow took/ out of youre pouere array / And putte yow / in estaat of heigh noblesse.

   • 1485, Sir Thomas Malory, chapter x, in Le Morte Darthur, book XIX:

     his moder had discouerd in her pryde / how she had wroughte that by enchauntement / soo that he shold neuer be hole vntyl the best knyghte of the world had serched his woundes / […] / And yf I fayle to hele hym here in this land I wylle neuer take more payne vpon me / and that is pyte for he was a good knyghte and of grete noblenes

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Ben Jonson to this entry?)

2. The nobility; peerage.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, I.8:

     Faire braunch of noblesse, flowre of cheualrie, / That with your worth the world amazed make, / How shall I quite the paines, ye suffer for my sake?

   (Can we find and add a quotation of John Dryden to this entry?)

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French

Etymology

Old French, see noble +‎ -esse

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /nɔblɛs/

Noun

noblesse f (uncountable)

1. nobility

Further reading

• “noblesse” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).