Lord

Lord is an appellation for a person or deity who has authority, control, or power over others, acting as a master, chief, or ruler.^[1]^[2] The appellation can also denote certain persons who hold a title of the peerage in the United Kingdom, or are entitled to courtesy titles. The collective "Lords" can refer to a group or body of peers.

Not to be confused with Lordi or Lorde.

Justices of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom not holding peerages, who are addressed as if they were life peers by .^[11] Wives of male justices who are not peers are addressed as if they were wives of peers. These forms of address are applicable both in court and in social contexts.

Royal Warrant

Judges of the , known as 'Lords Justices of Appeal'.

Court of Appeal of England and Wales

Judges of the Scottish , known as 'Lords of Council and Session'.

Court of Session

Justices of the Canadian provincial Supreme Courts, addressed in Court as "My Lord" or "My Lady" and referred to in legal literature as "Lordships" or "Ladyships".

Judges of the and the High Courts of India, who are addressed as "My Lord" and "Your Lordship" in court. The Bar Council of India called upon lawyers to give up this practice of addressing judges as 'lords' in 2006 but in practice, this was ignored.^[12]

Supreme Court of India

Non-English equivalents[edit]

In most cultures in Europe an equivalent appellation denoting deference exists. The French term Mon Seigneur ("My Lord"), shortened to the modern French Monsieur, derives directly from the Latin seniorem, meaning "elder, senior".^[13] From this Latin source derived directly also the Italian Signore, the Spanish Señor, the Portuguese Senhor.

Non-Romance languages have their own equivalents. Of the Germanic family there is the Dutch Meneer/Mijnheer/De Heer (as in: aan de heer Joren Jansen), German Herr, and Danish Herre. All three of these stem from a Germanic title of respect (in this case, from the Proto-Germanic root *haira-, "hoary, venerable, grey", likely a loan translation of Latin seniorem).^[14] In other European languages there is Welsh Arglwydd, Hungarian Úr, Greek Kyrie, Polish Pan, Czech pán, Breton Aotrou, and Albanian Zoti.

In several Indian languages there are the Hindi Swami, Prabhu, Thakur, Samprabhu (Overlord) and also words like Saheb or Laat Saheb from Lord Saheb were once used but have changed in meaning now, Telugu Prabhuvu, Tamil Koman, Kannada Dore, Bengali Probhu, Gujarati Swami, Punjabi Su'āmī, Nepali Prabhu. Words like Swami and Prabhu are Sanskrit-origin words, common in many Indian languages.

Philippine languages have different words for "lord", some of which are cognates. Tagalog has Panginoón for "lord" in both the noble and the religious senses. Its root, ginoo, is also found in Visayan languages like Cebuano as the term for "lord". Ginoo is also the Tagalog root for Ginoóng, the modern equivalent of the English term "Mister" (akin to how Romance language terms like señor may be glossed as either "lord", "mister", or "sir"). Ilocano meanwhile employs Apo for "Lord" in religious contexts; it is a particle that generally accords respect to an addressee of higher status than the speaker.

In the Yoruba language of West Africa, the words Olu and Oluwa are used in much the same way as the English term. Olodumare, the Yoruba conception of God Almighty, is often referred to using either of these two words. In the Yoruba chieftaincy system, meanwhile, the Oluwo of Iwo's royal title translates to "Lord of Iwo". In Lagos, the Oluwa of Lagos is one of that kingdom's most powerful chiefs.

English-language translations such as the King James Version usually render the Hebrew name YHWH (the Tetragrammaton) as "the LORD" with small caps. This usage follows the Jewish practice of substituting the spoken Hebrew word "Adonai" ("My Lords") for appearances of YHWH.^[16]

Old Testament

In , New Testament translations into English often refer to Jesus as "Lord" or "the Lord", translating Greek κύριος.

Christianity

In , the title Mar, which means "Lord", is used for saints, ecclesiastical figures, and Jesus.

Aramaic

Semitic religions

Baʿal

In the non-Semitic culture, En means "Lord", as in the names of Sumerian deities such as Enki and Enlil.

Sumerian

In , Gautama Buddha is often called "Lord Buddha".

Buddhism

In , "Lord" refers to the Mahavira.

Jainism

In , the name Adonis was a form of the Semitic Adoni.

Ancient Greece

In , the names Freyr and Freya may have the meaning "Lord" and "Lady".

Old Norse

The God is often referred to as "The Lord" and the Wiccan Goddess as "The Lady", or in the combination "Lord and Lady" (in this form, the definite article "the" is usually omitted), usually in reference to a mythological pairing such as Cernunos and Cerridwen.

Wiccan

In it is believed that Jesus was the YHVH (Jehovah) of the Old Testament in his pre-mortal existence, and since that name is translated as "the Lord" in the King James Bible, in Mormonism "the Lord" refers to Jesus. Elohim, a separate individual who is the father of Jesus, is generally referred to by Mormons as "God" or "Heavenly Father". (See Mormon cosmology for references.)

Mormonism

In , the Svayam Bhagavan may refer to the concept of the Absolute representation of the monotheistic God. Another name more commonly used in Hindu theology is Ishvara, meaning "The Lord", the personal god consisting of the trinity of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva. In common parlance, 'Lord' is used before many deities, for example, Lord Shiva, Lord Ganesha, Lord Rama etc. as a translation of "Shri".

Hindu theology

: The English term "Lord" is often used to translate the Arabic term rabb (Arabic: رب).

Islam

English speakers use the word "Lord" as a title of deference for various gods or deities. The earliest recorded use of "Lord" in the English language in a religious context occurred in the work of English scholars such as Bede (c. 673 – 735). However, Bede wrote in Latin (Michael Lapidge describes him as "without question the most accomplished Latinist produced in these islands in the Anglo-Saxon period"^[15]). He used an Anglo-Saxon phrase that indicated a noble, prince, ruler or lord to refer to God; however, he applied this as a gloss to the Latin text that he was producing, and not as a clear translation of the term itself. "Lord", as a gloss to Old English dryhten, meant "royal", "ruler", "prince", or "noble", and did not indicate a deity. After the 11th-century Norman invasion of England and the influx of Norman-French-speaking clerics, this understanding began to be applied to religious texts as well, but that occurred during the later Middle Ages and not in Bede's early medieval period. The word "Lord" appears frequently in the King James Bible of the early 17th century. See also Jesus is Lord.