YEOMAN

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does yeoman mean? 

• YEOMAN (noun)
  The noun YEOMAN has 2 senses:

1. officer in the (ceremonial) bodyguard of the British monarch

2. in former times was free and cultivated his own land

  Familiarity information: YEOMAN used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• YEOMAN (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Officer in the (ceremonial) bodyguard of the British monarch

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

beefeater; yeoman; yeoman of the guard

Hypernyms ("yeoman" is a kind of...):

bodyguard; escort (someone who escorts and protects a prominent person)

Sense 2

Meaning:

In former times was free and cultivated his own land

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Hypernyms ("yeoman" is a kind of...):

freeholder (the owner of a freehold)

 Context examples 

Ill betide the day that ever I took off my yeoman's jerkin to put on the white gown!

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I likewise delivered up my watch, which the emperor was very curious to see, and commanded two of his tallest yeomen of the guards to bear it on a pole upon their shoulders, as draymen in England do a barrel of ale.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

Uppercross was a moderate-sized village, which a few years back had been completely in the old English style, containing only two houses superior in appearance to those of the yeomen and labourers; the mansion of the squire, with its high walls, great gates, and old trees, substantial and unmodernized, and the compact, tight parsonage, enclosed in its own neat garden, with a vine and a pear-tree trained round its casements; but upon the marriage of the young 'squire, it had received the improvement of a farm-house elevated into a cottage, for his residence, and Uppercross Cottage, with its veranda, French windows, and other prettiness, was quite as likely to catch the traveller's eye as the more consistent and considerable aspect and premises of the Great House, about a quarter of a mile farther on.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

We are all freemen, and I trow that a yeoman's cudgel is as good as a forester's knife.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I descended so low, as to desire some English yeoman of the old stamp might be summoned to appear; once so famous for the simplicity of their manners, diet, and dress; for justice in their dealings; for their true spirit of liberty; for their valour, and love of their country.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

“Indeed, your high and mighty grace,” sneered one of the yeomen, “have you in sooth so ordained?”

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Yeomen prickers they are, who tend to the King's hunt.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

In the High Street of Lyndhurst the wayfarers had to pick their way, for the little town was crowded with the guardsmen, grooms, and yeomen prickers who were attached to the King's hunt.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

One noontide I was by Franklin Swinton's gate, when up he rides with a yeoman pricker at his heels.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

So long as knight and baron were a strength and a guard to the kingdom they might be endured, but now, when all men knew that the great battles in France had been won by English yeomen and Welsh stabbers, warlike fame, the only fame to which his class had ever aspired, appeared to have deserted the plate-clad horsemen.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)