[a. AF. counte = OF. cunte, conte (in nom. case quens, cuens, cons) = Pr. comte (nom. coms), Sp. conde, It. conte:—L. comit-em (nom. comes) lit. ‘companion,’ subseq. a title of dignity in the empire (cf. peer). The word was common in AF. of all ages, in the sense of earl, but, unlike the feminine COUNTESS, never passed into English till used in 16th c. to represent the mod.Fr. comte and It. conte, as foreign titles. See also COUNTY sb.2]
1. A title of nobility in some European countries, corresponding to the English title EARL (by which in earlier times it was always translated).
It is now used to render not only the various cognate Romanic words, but also the German graf and its cognates in Du., Da., Sw., etc.
In reference to Roman History, it translates L. comes, as in Count of Britain (Comes Britanniæ) and Count of the Saxon Shore (Comes Littoris Saxonici), two of the generals of the Roman province of Britannia in the 4th century.
[1258. Procl. Hen. III. (French ver.) Henri par la grace deu, Rey de Engleterre, Sire de Irlande, Duc de Normandie de Aquiten et Cunte de Angou. (Eng. ver.) Henri þurȝ godes fultume king on Engleneloande, Lhoauerd on Yrloande, Duk on Normandie on Aquitaine and eorl on Aniow.
1292. Britton, I. i. § 5. Le counte de Norfolk.]
1553. Machyn’s Diary (Camden), 34. Phelyp and Marie by the grace of God kyng and quene of England, Franse, Napuls, Jerusalem, and Ierland … prynsses of Spayne and Ses[ily], archesdukes of Austherege … Contes of Haspurge, Flanders, and Tyrole.
1561. T. Hoby (title), The Courtyer of Covnt Baldessar Castilio.
1592. Greene, Upst. Courtier, Wks. (Grosart), XI. 217. Certain Italianate Contes, humorous Caualiers.
1595. Shaks., John, IV. iii. 15. The Count Meloone a Noble Lord of France. Ibid. (1599), Much Ado, II. i. 218. Now Signior, where’s the Count, did you see him?
1630. R. Johnson’s Kingd. & Commw., 173. [In France] The Governours of Cities were in old time called Dukes, and they of Provinces, Counts.
1652. Needham, trans. Selden’s Mare Cl., 234. The Counts or Dukes of the midland parts, and the Count of the Sea-Coast or Saxon Shore, had distinct charges.
1777. Watson, Philip II. (1839), 127. Had Count Egmont been of the same opinion with the prince of Orange.
1781. Gibbon, Decl. & F., xvii. (1846), II. 35. All these provincial generals were therefore dukes; but no more than ten among them were dignified with the rank of counts or companions, a title of honour, or rather of favour, which had been recently invented in the court of Constantine.
1845. Sarah Austin, Ranke’s Hist. Ref., II. 511. The primitive organisation of the church of Germany under Charlemagne, founded on the combined power and agency of the bishops and counts.
1889. Whitaker’s Almanack, 494. The German Empire … Ambassador in London, Count Hatzfeldt-Wildenberg.
2. Count Palatine: orig. in the later Roman Empire a count (comes) attached to the imperial palace, and having supreme judicial authority in all causes that came to the king’s immediate audience; thence, under the German Emperors, etc., a count to whom it was granted to exercise supreme jurisdiction in his fiel or province; in English History = Earl Palatine, the earl or other proprietor of a county palatine, now applied to the Earl of Chester, and Duke of Lancaster, dignities which are attached to the crown. See PALATINE.
1596. Shaks., Merch. V., I. ii. 64. Why, he hath … a better bad habite of frowning then the Count Palentine.
1840. Penny Cycl., XVII. 56. Two of the English counties, Chester and Lancaster are counties palatine, and the earls of Chester and the dukes of Lancaster bear the titles of counts palatine. The archbishop of York, previously to the reign of Elizabeth, claimed to be a count palatine within his possession of Hexham and Hexhamshire.
3. Comb. Count-bishop, a bishop holding also the temporal dignity of count; so count-cardinal (applied to Wolsey, who, as Archbishop of York, was Count of Hexhamshire).
1613. Shaks., Hen. VIII., I. i. 172. But our Count-Cardinall Has done this, and tis well: for worthy Wolsey (Who cannot erre) he did it.
1820. Byron, Mar. Fal., Pref. Lorenzo Count-bishop of Ceneda.
