different between varlet vs vassal

English

Etymology

From Old French varlet. Compare valet.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?v??l?t/

Noun

varlet (plural varlets)

1. (obsolete) A servant or attendant.
   • 1843, Thomas Carlyle, Past and Present, book 2, ch. 8, The Electon

     The Winchester Manorhouse has fled bodily, like a Dream of the old Night […] . House and people, royal and episcopal, lords and varlets, where are they?

2. (historical) Specifically, a youth acting as a knight's attendant at the beginning of his training for knighthood.
3. (archaic) A rogue or scoundrel.
   • 1749, Henry Fielding, Tom Jones, Folio Society 1973, p. 410:

     My lady to be called a nasty Scotch wh–re by such a varlet!—To be sure I wish I had knocked his brains out with the punchbowl.

   • 1886, Henry James, The Bostonians.

     He was false, cunning, vulgar, ignoble; the cheapest kind of human product […] The white, puffy mother, with the high forehead, in the corner there, looked more like a lady; but if she were one, it was all the more shame to her to have mated with such a varlet, Ransom said to himself, making use, as he did generally, of terms of opprobrium extracted from the older English literature.

4. (obsolete, card games) The jack.

Translations

Anagrams

• retval, travel

Old French

Noun

varlet m (oblique plural varlez or varletz, nominative singular varlez or varletz, nominative plural varlet)

1. Alternative form of vaslet

English

Alternative forms

• vasal (rare)

Etymology

From Middle English vassal, from Old French vassal, from Medieval Latin vassallus (“manservant, domestic, retainer”), from Latin vassus (“servant”), from Gaulish *wassos (“young man, squire”), from Proto-Celtic *wastos (“servant”) (compare Old Irish foss and Welsh gwas).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?væs?l/
• Rhymes: -æs?l

Noun

vassal (plural vassals)

1. (historical) The grantee of a fief, feud, or fee; one who keeps land of a superior, and who vows fidelity and homage to him, normally a lord of a manor; a feudatory; a feudal tenant.
2. A subordinate

   Synonyms: subject, dependant, servant, slave

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations

Adjective

vassal (not comparable)

1. Resembling a vassal; slavish; servile.
   • 1594, William Shakespeare, Love's Labour's Lost, Act IV, scene iii

     Did they, quoth you? / Who sees the heavenly Rosaline / That, like a rude and savage man of Inde / At the first opening of the gorgeous east / Bows not his vassal head and strucken blind / Kisses the base ground with obedient breast?

Translations

Verb

vassal (third-person singular simple present vassals, present participle vassalling, simple past and past participle vassalled)

1. (transitive) To treat as a vassal or to reduce to the position of a vassal; to subject to control; to enslave.
2. (transitive) To subordinate to someone or something.

Translations

Anagrams

• Salvas, slavas, vasals

French

Etymology

From Old French vassal, from Medieval Latin vassallus (“manservant, domestic, retainer”), from Latin vassus (“servant”), from Gaulish *wassos (“young man, squire”), from Proto-Celtic *wastos (“servant”) (compare Old Irish foss and Welsh gwas).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /va.sal/

Adjective

vassal (feminine singular vassale, masculine plural vassaux, feminine plural vassales)

1. vassal

Noun

vassal m (plural vassaux, feminine vassale)

1. a vassal

Descendants

• ? Danish: vasal
• ? Russian: ??????? (vassál) (see there for further descendants)

Further reading

• “vassal” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Anagrams

• valsas

Hungarian

Etymology

vas +? -val

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [?v????l]
• Hyphenation: vas?sal

Noun

vassal

1. instrumental singular of vas

Derived terms

• t?zzel-vassal

Old French

Noun

vassal m (oblique plural vassaus or vassax or vassals, nominative singular vassaus or vassax or vassals, nominative plural vassal)

1. vassal

Descendants

• English: vassal (rare)
• French: vassal
• Norman: vassa (Jersey)