''yeoman'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260904134559-00-⌔

yeoman - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

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Noun

yeoman (plural yeomen)

• (UK) An official providing honorable service in a royal or high noble household, ranking between a squire and a page. Especially, a yeoman of the guard, a member of a ceremonial bodyguard to the UK monarch (not to be confused with a Yeoman Warder).
• (US) A dependable, diligent, or loyal worker or someone who does a great service.
• (historical) A former class of small freeholders who farm their own land; a commoner of good standing.
  • ✤ This model of production costs might alternatively be derived from a yeoman farmer model, in which households supply goods directly[.]¹
• A subordinate, deputy, aide, or assistant.
• A Yeoman Warder.
• A clerk in the US Navy, and US Coast Guard.
• (nautical) In a vessel of war, the person in charge of the storeroom.
• A member of the Yeomanry Cavalry, officially chartered in 1794 originating around the 1760s.
• A member of the Imperial Yeomanry, officially created in 1890s and renamed in 1907.
• Any of various nymphalid butterflies of the genus Cirrochroa, of Asia and Australasia.

Etymology

From Middle English yeman, yoman, of disputed etymology:

• From Old English ﹡ġēamann, from Proto-West Germanic ﹡gawamann, variant of ﹡gauwjamann (compare Old Frisian gāman (“villager”), Middle High German göuman (“peasant”)), compound of Proto-West Germanic ﹡gawi (“shire, district”) (compare Old English -ġē, -ġēa (“district, region”) (in ælġē, Sūþriġēa), West Frisian gea, goa, Dutch gouw, German Gau) + ﹡mann (“man”).²³
• A contraction of yong man; compare dialectal yeomath (“aftermath”) for a possible parallel.⁴

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /ˈjəʊ.mən/
  • Audio (Southern England): 🔊
• (General American, Canada) IPA: /ˈjoʊ.mən/
• (Australia) IPA: /ˈjəʉ.mən/
• (New Zealand) IPA: /ˈjɐʉ.mən/
• (obsolete) IPA: /ˈjiː.mən/⁵
• Rhymes: -əʊmən

Printed 2026-09-04.

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Footnotes

1. 2003, Michael Woodford, Interest and Prices, →ISBN, page 150: ↩

2. Robert K. Barnhart, ed., Chambers Dictionary of Etymology, s.v. “yeoman” (Edinburgh: Chambers, [2008], c1988), 1253. ↩

3. American Heritage Dictionary, 4th edn., s.v. “yeoman”. ↩

4. Onions, C[harles] T., Friedrichsen, G. W. S., and Burchfield, R[obert] W., editors (1966), “yeoman”, in The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology ‎${}^{[1]}$, Oxford: Clarendon Press, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 1019, column 2; reprinted 1994. ↩

5. Thomas Sheridan (1790), A Complete Dictionary of the English Language, Both with Regard to Sound and Meaning ‎${}^{[2]}$, volume 2, C. Dilly ↩