allegiance
From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
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Alternative forms
- allegiaunce (obsolete)
Etymology
From Middle English alegiaunce, from Anglo-Norman alegaunce (“loyalty of a liege-servant to one's lord”), variant of Old French ligeance, from lige (“vassal, liegeman”). More at liege.
Pronunciation
Noun
allegiance (countable and uncountable, plural allegiances)
- Loyalty to some cause, nation or ruler.
- 1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XI, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume III, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 83:
- With what a feeling of joyful security did her heart go back to its old allegiance! Till now she had scarcely been aware of its strength, for she had known it but by its disappointment—now she fully admitted that early and passionate emotion with which Robert Evelyn had inspired her was indeed her destiny;...
Derived terms
- counterallegiance
- oath of allegiance
- pledge of allegiance
Translations
loyalty to some cause, nation or ruler
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References
- Oxford English Dictionary, 1884–1928, and First Supplement, 1933.
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