Drighten
name, noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A lord; ruler; sovereign; chief; leader; prince. Norse, historical
"Believe me, my drighten, there is not one of us that has ever slacked on watch before!"
- 2 A lord; ruler; sovereign; chief; leader; prince.; The Lord; Lord God; Christ. Norse, capitalized, historical, obsolete, usually
- 1 Alternative form of drighten. alt-of, alternative, historical
- 2 The Lord, God the Father. obsolete
- 3 Jesus Christ, God the Son. obsolete
Synonyms
All synonymsExample
More examples"Believe me, my drighten, there is not one of us that has ever slacked on watch before!"
Etymology
From Middle English drihten, from Old English dryhten (“a ruler, king, lord, prince, the supreme ruler, the Lord, God, Christ”), from Proto-West Germanic *druhtin, from Proto-Germanic *druhtinaz (“leader, chief, lord”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰrewgʰ- (“to hold, hold fast, support”). Cognate with Scots drichtin, drichtine (“lord, the Lord”), and with Old Frisian drochten (“lord”), Old Saxon drohtin (“lord”), Old High German truhtin, Middle High German truhten, trohten (“ruler, lord”) (dialectal German Trechtin, Trechtein (“lord, God”)), Danish drot (“king”), Swedish drott (“king, ruler, sovereign”), Icelandic dróttinn (“hero, ruler, lord”), Finnish ruhtinas (“sovereign prince”). Related also to Old English dryht (“a multitude, an army, company, body of retainers, nation, a people, men”), Old English ġedryht (“fortune, fate”), Old English drēogan (“to serve in the military, endure”). More at dree. By surface analysis, dright (“army, host”) + -en.
See drighten. Displaced by Lord.
Related phrases
More for "drighten"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.