Landlord

sb. Also 6 land(i)slord. [f. LAND sb. + LORD sb. OE. had landhláford, but the mod. word is a new formation.]

  1.  Originally, a lord or owner of land; in recorded use applied only spec. to the person who lets land to a tenant. Hence (perh. already in 16th c.) in widened sense (as the correlative of tenant): A person of whom another person holds any tenement, whether a piece of land, a building or part of a building.

a. 1000.  in Earle, Land Charters (1888), 376. Æt ælcum were ðe binnan ðam .xxx. hidan is ʓebyreð æfre se oðer fisc ðam landhlaforde.

c. 1000.  Laws of Edgar, Suppl. c. 11, in Schmid, Gesetze, 196. Healde se land-hlaford þæt forstolene orf … oð þæt se aʓenfriʓea þæt ʓeacsiʓe.

1419.  Liber Albus, 192 b (Rolls), I. 221. Le lessour, appelle ‘landlorde.’

1455–6.  Gregory, Chron. (Camden), 199. The Lombardys … toke grete old mancyons in Wynchester … and causyd the londe lordys to do grete coste in reparacyons.

1552.  in Vicary’s Anat. (1888), App. III. ii. 152. Suche rate as thei paye in yerely rent … to the landelordes therof.

1553.  T. Wilson, Rhet., 15. Would servauntes obey their masters … the tenaunt his landlorde.

1557.  F. Seager, Sch. Virtue, 1071, in Babees Bk. Ye that be landlordes and haue housen to let.

1587.  Sc. Acts Jas. VI. (1814), III. 462/1. Þe landislordes and baillies vpoun quhais landis and in quhais Jurisdictioun þai duell.

c. 1590.  Greene, Fr. Bacon, x. 11. I am the lands-lord keeper of thy holds.

1593.  Shaks., Rich. II., II. i. 113. Landlord of England art thou, and not King.

1662.  Stillingfl., Orig. Sacr., III. iii. § 1. His Landlord may dispossess him of all he hath upon displeasure.

1701.  De Foe, Orig. Power People, Misc. (1703), 157. If the King was universal Landlord, he ought to be universal Governor of Right.

1809.  Lamb, Lett. to Coleridge, 7 June. I have been turned out of my chambers in the Temple by a landlord who wanted them for himself.

1818.  Cruise, Digest (ed. 2), I. 282. Six months notice to quit must be given by a landlord to his tenant at will.

1876.  Freeman, Norm. Conq., V. xxiv. 381. The doctrine was established that the King was the supreme landlord.

1878.  Jevons, Prim. Pol. Econ., 92. The laws concerning landlord and tenant have been made by landlords.

  b.  fig. (said of God.)

a. 1635.  Corbet, Poems (1807), 6.

1676.  W. Hubbard, Happiness of People, 59. It is no wonder if God our great Land-lord, layes his arrest upon our tillage.

  2.  a. In extended sense: The person in whose house one lodges or boards for payment; one’s ‘host.’ b. The master of an inn, an innkeeper.

a. 1674.  Clarendon, Hist. Reb., XIII. § 86. He new dressed himself, changing clothes with his landlord.

1692.  Luttrell, Brief Rel. (1857), II. 411. His landlords daughter testified that [etc.].

1724.  Swift, Drapier’s Lett., i. Wks. 1761, III. 21. Suppose you go to an alehouse with that base money and the landlord gives you a quart for four of those halfpence.

1774.  Goldsm., Retal., 3. If our landlord supplies us with beef and with fish.

1777.  Sheridan, Trip Scarb., I. i. I suppose, sir, I must charge the landlord to be very particular where he stows this?

1870.  Daily News, 16 April, 6/4. The word landlord is never used here [sc. New England] in its primary or English signification, and is applied only to the keeper of a tavern or boarding house.

  3.  A host or entertainer (in private). Chiefly Sc.

1725.  De Foe, Voy. round World (1840), 65. Which their new landlords took very kindly.

1858.  Ramsay, Remin., Ser. I. (1860), 256. Persons still persist among us in calling the head of the family, or the host, the landlord.

1864.  Burton, Scot. Abr., I. i. 26. Not so satisfactory … as the confiding landlord expects it to be.