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Definition 2024

esne

esne

English

Noun

esne ‎(plural esnes)

  1. (Anglo-Saxon, historical) A hireling of servile status; slave.
    • 1818, Samuel Heywood, A dissertation upon the distinctions in society:
      To an esne, therefore, I refer the entry in Doomsday-book, that at Chester, if a male or female slave shall do any [...]
    • 1875, William Stubbs, The constitutional history of England, in its origin and development:
      [...] of British extraction captured or purchased, — or of the common German stock descended from the slaves of the first colonists: the esne or slave who works for hire; [...]
    • 2011, David Anthony Edgell Pelteret, Slavery in Early Mediaeval England:
      [...] insist that in the event of the death of an esne his full value had to be paid.

Basque

Noun

esne

  1. milk

Etymology

From Old English esne ‎(“a man of the servile class, a laborer, slave, servant, retainer, a youth, young man, man, scholar”), from Proto-Germanic *asniz, *asunz ‎(“reward”), from Proto-Indo-European *os(e)n-, *es(e)n- ‎(“summer, harvest, harvest-time”). Cognate with Middle Low German asne, asnen ‎(“wages, fixed income”), Old High German asni ‎(“hireling, day labourer, servant”), Gothic 𐌰𐍃𐌽𐌴𐌹𐍃 ‎(asneis, “a hireling, day labourer”). Related to Old English earnian ‎(“to labor for, strive after, deserve as the reward of labor, merit, earn, win”). More at earn.

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