Forms: 3–4 courteour(e, 4 kourteour, 5 courtyour, -teyer, -teer, coortyowre, cowrtyoure, corteore, 5–6 courtyer, 6 -tyar, -ter, -ture, cortier, 6– courtier. [app. repr. an AF. *corte(i)our = OF. *cortoyeur, f. cortoyer to be at or frequent the court: see COURT v.]

1

  1.  One who frequents the court of a sovereign; an attendant at court.

2

c. 1290.  S. Eng. Leg., I. 114/254. A-ȝen þe proute courteoures.

3

c. 1350.  Will. Palerne, 342. My fader … knew of kourt þe þewes, for kourteour was he long.

4

c. 1440.  Gesta Rom., II. lii. 372 (Add. MS.). Prelates of causes temporall, courteers, Iurrours, and wily men.

5

1481.  Caxton, Reynard (Arb.), 44. Reynard the foxe is now asquyer and a courtyer.

6

1538.  Starkey, England, II. i. 159. To many courtyarys and idul servantys.

7

1598.  Shaks., Merry W., III. iii. 66. Thou wouldst make an absolute Courtier.

8

1621.  Lady M. Wroth, Urania, 535. A delicate Courtier, curious in her habites … did all things fit for a Court, as well as any braue Lady could doe.

9

1720.  Gay, Poems (1745), II. 83. False is the cringing Courtier’s plighted word.

10

1847.  L. Hunt, Jar Honey, ix. (1848), 122. Chaucer was a courtier, and a companion of princes.

11

  b.  transf.

12

1601.  Shaks., Twel. N., III. i. 97. That youth’s a rare Courtier.

13

1838.  Lytton, Alice, I. 22. We have now a new vicar, and I must turn courtier in my old age.

14

  c.  Eng. Hist.

15

1827.  Hallam, Const. Hist. (1876), II. x. 269. The new parliament consisted of courtiers, as the Cromwell party were always denominated.

16

  † d.  A court-card. Obs. rare.

17

1658.  Osborn, Adv. Son (1673), 179. A Courtier kept out, and a mean trump foisted in, where the best is required.

18

  † 2.  One who courts; a wooer. Obs.

19

1606.  Shaks., Ant. & Cl., II. vi. 17. Courtiers of beautious freedome.

20

1640.  Suckling, Lett to H. German., Wks. (1709), 108 (J.). There was not among all our Princes a greater Courtier of the People than Richard the Third, not so much out of Fear, as out of Wisdom.

21

1665.  Boyle, Occas. Refl., V. ix. (1675), 333. Courtiers of Applause.

22

1766.  Amory, Buncle (1770), III. 183. The husband generally proves a very different man from the courtier.

23

  3.  Comb., as courtier-company; courtier-like adj. and adv.

24

1598.  Florio, Cortegianesco, courtier-like.

25

1621.  Lady M. Wroth, Urania, 268. Courtier-like dainty Courtship.

26

1735.  Collect. Epigrams, cclvii. (Jod.). He courtier-like cry’d, prythee, get thee gone.

27

1858.  Gladstone, Homer, III. 503. A spirit of courtierlike adulation.

28

1878.  Browning, Poets Croisic, 42. The courtier-company, to whom he passed The paper.

29