Lordful
adj ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 Having the manner or bearing of a lord; lordly; (by extension) authoritative; authoritarian; overbearing; bossy
"Actually such lessons occur in service of an older hierarchical form of love whereby men are still seen as lords and masters of their households and wives and children are seen as subservient and subordinate creatures. Eliot and Joyce are obviously critical of the demeaning and damaging implications of such love and want their readers to agree with them. But Steinbeck is intrigued by the lordful view; he wants to shock his readers into accepting the supposed wisdom of the older hierarchical arrangements, and even to accept their violent implications."
Example
More examples"Actually such lessons occur in service of an older hierarchical form of love whereby men are still seen as lords and masters of their households and wives and children are seen as subservient and subordinate creatures. Eliot and Joyce are obviously critical of the demeaning and damaging implications of such love and want their readers to agree with them. But Steinbeck is intrigued by the lordful view; he wants to shock his readers into accepting the supposed wisdom of the older hierarchical arrangements, and even to accept their violent implications."
Etymology
From Middle English lordfulle, equivalent to lord + -ful.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.