Baron
name, noun, slang ·Common ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 The male ruler of a barony.
- 2 a very wealthy or powerful businessperson wordnet
- 3 A male member of the lowest rank of English nobility (the equivalent rank in Scotland is lord).
- 4 a British peer of the lowest rank wordnet
- 5 A person of great power in society, especially in business and politics. broadly
"There were a few exotics among them — some South American boys, sons of Argentine beef barons, one or two Russians, and even a Siamese prince, or someone who was described as a prince."
Show 5 more definitions
- 6 a nobleman (in various countries) of varying rank wordnet
- 7 A prisoner who gains power and influence by lending or selling goods such as tobacco. UK, slang
"The first thing a baron does is to accumulate a supply of tobacco. He spends every penny he can earn on laying it in […]"
- 8 A baron of beef, a cut made up of a double sirloin.
"Such portentous appetites had Queequeg and Tashtego, that to fill out the vacancies made by the previous repast, often the pale Dough-Boy was fain to bring on a great baron of salt-junk, seemingly quarried out of the solid ox."
- 9 Any of various nymphalid butterflies of the genus Euthalia.
- 10 A husband. obsolete
"baron and femme"
- 1 A surname from French
- 2 A surname from German
- 3 A surname from Polish
- 4 A surname from Ukrainian
Example
More examples"The old man you saw today in the studio was Baron Hausberg. He is a great friend of mine, buys all my pictures and that sort of thing, and gave me a commission a month ago to paint him as a beggar."
Etymology
From Middle English baroun, from Old French baron, from Latin barōnem, from Proto-West Germanic *barō, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *bʰer- (“to bear”). Cognate with Old High German *baro (“human being, man, freeman”), Old English bora (“a man who bears responsibility, one who is in charge, a ruler”), and perhaps to Old English beorn (“man, warrior”). Used in early Germanic law in the sense of "man, human being". A Celtic origin has also been suggested; see the quote under sense 3 of Latin barō. However, the OED takes the hypothetical Proto-Celtic *bar- (“hero”) to be a figment.
* As a French, English, Jewish, Dutch, Polish, Russian, Czech, German, Spanish (Barón), Romanian, Serbo-Croatian, and Breton surname, all from the noun baron. Compare Barron, Lebaron. * Also as a French surname, from several places in France Le Baron. * As an Italian (Veneto) surname, variant of Barone. * Also as a Czech surname (Baroň), from a pet form of Bartoloměj. * As an Irish surname, Anglicized from Ó Bearáin; see Barnes. * General Slavic surname: Anglicization of Polish Baran (“Aries”), Ukrainian Баран (Baran), etc.
Related phrases
More for "baron"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.