noun
definition
The owner of a Scottish estate; a member of the landed gentry, a landowner.
definition
Often in the form Laird of, followed by a patronymic: a Scottish clan chief.
verb
definition
Chiefly as laird it over: to behave like a laird, particularly to act haughtily or to domineer; to lord (it over).
Examples of laird in a Sentence
Tankerness House is a characteristic example of the mansion of an Orkney laird of the olden time.
Once this parish had a laird who dabbled in cannibalism.
After three such good fortunes by marriage Norfolk in his folly looked for a crown with a fourth match, listening to the laird of Lethington when he set forth the scheme by which the duke was to marry a restored queen of Scots and rule Scotland with her who should be recognized as Elizabeth's successor.
Alexander Brodie (1617-1680), the fourteenth laird, was one of the commissioners who went to the Hague to treat with Charles II., and afterwards became a Scottish lord of session and an English judge.
The manufacture of linen thread, introduced about 1720 by Christian Shaw, daughter of the laird of Bargarran, gave way in 1812 to that of cotton thread, which has since grown to be the leading industry of the town.
It will be remembered that when the laird of Dumbiedikes lay dying (Scott's Heart of Midlothian, chap. viii.) he gave his son one bit of advice which Bacon himself could not have bettered.
Macgregor Laird first organized in 1832 the navigation of the river Niger from its mouth to a point above the Benue confluence.
Sir John was certainly a friend of Creighton, laird of Branston, who was deeply implicated in the plot, but Creighton also befriended the reformer during his evangelical labours in Midlothian.
For the danger now was that some gentlemen were already cruel in exactions of their tenants, "requiring of them whatever before they paid to the Church, so that the papistical tyranny shall only be changed into the tyranny of the lords or of the laird."
The rise of Birkenhead, from a hamlet of some 50 inhabitants in 1818 to its present importance, was due in the first place to the foresight and enterprise of William Laird, who purchased in 1824 a few acres of land on the banks of a marshy stream, known as Wallasey Pool, which flowed into the Mersey about 2 m.
Iron foundries, breweries, oil-cake and seed mills also exist side by side with such immense engineering and shipbuilding works as the Britannia Works, Canada Works, and, above all, Laird's shipbuilding works, where several early iron vessels were built, and many cruisers and battleships have been launched.
Moreover, nearly every Rose has borne the Christian name of Hugh, and only one attained to a higher social rank than that of laird.
At this time Captain Stockton, of the United States navy, gave an order for a small iron vessel to be built by Laird of Birkenhead, and to be fitted by Ericsson with engines and screw.
Tony, who had never before seen a Scottish laird on his native heath got rather a shock.
Client might employ a gardener on a shared basis with local laird.
Dandie's sister, sitting by the side of Clem in her new Glasgow finery, chose that moment to observe the young laird.
John Buchanan, the last laird, sold his ancestral estate in 1682 to the Marquess of Montrose.
After a long and happy life, Granddad laird dies, and Lord Lyon says that B is the new laird.
You play, Jacob, like a bonnet laird, or a sailor in a tavern.
Crown Derby china dating from the same time and belonging to the last resident laird, adds to the picture.
Melsetter House's roots date back to 1738 when an L-shaped two story laird 's house was built here.
For the tipsy laird trifle, there is always the cream sherry option.
He early attracted the notice of Sir Roderick Murchison, through whom he was appointed surgeon and naturalist to the Niger expedition sent out in 1854 by Macgregor Laird with government support.
Crushed at Rullion Green in the Pentlands, by General Dalziel, this movement left the Presbyterians the more angry, by reason of the cruelty of its suppression, and the use of torture to extract information from Mackail, a preacher, and Neilson of Corsack, a laird.
Laird. "Management of allergy, rashes, and itching."
People magazine reported that daughter Brody Jo Hamilton was born on January 1, 2008, in Hawaii to Reece and her pro-surfer husband Laird Hamilton.
In the same year a young Tweedside laird, Murray of Broughton, visited Rome, fell in love with Prince Charles, then a handsome, wayward, stalwart and ambitious lad, with " a body made for war," and, returning home, Murray practically succeeded to the duties once performed by Lockhart of Carnwath, as Jacobite agent and organizer.
Jackson, and the school of art, given by Sir John Laird.