1. An officer or soldier who bears the standard.
c. 1450. Brut, 538. In his retenewe … v standart berers.
1538. in P. H. Hore, Hist. Wexford (1900), I. 237. Watkyne and his followers did meth with Cahir McArtes Standarthe berrer.
1544. Betham, Precepts War, I. clxxv. H viij b. Plucke the standart from the standart bearer.
1611. Bible, Isa. x. 18. They shall bee as when a standerd bearer fainteth.
1781. Gibbon, Decl. & F., xxix. III. 129. As Mascezel advanced … he encountered one of the foremost standard-bearers of the Africans.
1879. Froude, Cæsar, xvii. 278. The standard-bearer … reached the fosse, flung the eagle over the rampart, [etc.].
b. As the title of an office of dignity. Hist.
1829. Heath, Grocers’ Comp. (1869), 3. Lord Fitzwalter, hereditary chastellain banneret or standard-bearer of London.
1837. Lockhart, Scott, I. ii. 71. A charter granted by Archibald Earl of Douglas … to Henry de Haliburton, whom he designates as his standard-bearer.
c. One who carries a banner in a procession.
1495. Acc., in Sharp, Cov. Myst. (1825), 196. Payd to the stondard-beyrres, & ffor poyntes xj d.
1844. trans. M. T. Asmar’s Mem. Babyl. Princ., II. 72. Accompanied by standard-bearers, carrying banners of various colours.
1858. Simmonds, Dict. Trade, Standard-bearer, an officer who carries a banner or colours in a procession.
2. fig. Chiefly, a conspicuous advocate of a cause; one who is in the forefront of a political or religious party.
1561. T. Norton, Calvin’s Inst., IV. 7. They that are bolder than other, and as it were standerd bearers to make any departyng from the Churche.
1594. T. B., La Primaud. Fr. Acad., II. 543. Epicurus himselfe, the captaine and standard-bearer of all atheists and epicures.
1608. Topsell, Serpents, 65. Very seldome … they [male bees, drones] stir out of doores, as those whom nature had pointed out to be the fittest to be stander-bearers, and to carry ancients in the camp of Venus.
1611. Bible, Cant. v. 10. My beloved is … the chiefest [marg., a standard-bearer] among ten thousand.
1710. M. Henry, Christianity no Sect, Wks. 1857, II. 449/1. Marvel not if the standard-bearers be most struck at.
1821. Scott, Kenilw., vii. You, whom men call the standard-bearer of the true Protestant faith.
1900. G. C. Brodrick, Mem., 408. As though I had any claim to be treated as a standard-bearer of the party.
Hence Standardbearership.
1865. J. M. Ludlow, Pop. Epics, II. 201. Aragon promises the standard-bearership of his kingdom to whosoever will take William.
