*SET-U

CANONICAL LANGUAGE GRAPH

TRACE A WORD ↗
NODE / 0850attestedMiddle English

lady

TRANSLITERATION lady

lady; mistress of a household

DATE
Middle English
SENSE
lady title
FAMILY
Indo-European / West Germanic
CANONICAL KEY
node:2:lady:attested:sense:lady-title

A medieval continuation of Old English hlǣfdige.

01

ANCESTRAL EDGES

ROOT OF THIS ROOT

1
GO DEEPERcontinuationestablished
Old English · Old English · loaf kneader compound

hlǣfdige

lady; mistress of a household; loaf kneader

SOUND
Middle English lady continues Old English hlǣfdige with contraction and loss of the compound’s transparency.
MEANING
Mistress-of-household and rank senses continue while literal morphology recedes.
SCHOLAR
Merriam-Webster Editors · American Heritage Dictionary Editors
CONFIDENCE
established
Lady — Definition, Word History, and First Known UsesupportsEtymology: Middle English from Old English hlǣfdige

Publishes the contraction path.

ORIGINAL ↗
Lady — American Heritage DictionarycontextEtymology: Middle English lady from Old English hlǣfdige

Independently confirms the step.

ORIGINAL ↗
OPEN CANONICAL EDGE 853 ↗
02

DIRECT DESCENDANT EDGES

THE NEXT HISTORICAL STEP

1
DESCENDANTcontinuationestablished
Present-Day English · before the 12th century–today · woman rank title

lady

woman of rank; polite term for a woman

SOUND
Middle English lady continues into modern lady with stabilized spelling and pronunciation.
MEANING
Household rank develops into aristocratic and polite forms of address.
CHRONOLOGY
Recorded before the twelfth century in English.
SCHOLAR
Merriam-Webster Editors · American Heritage Dictionary Editors
CONFIDENCE
established
Lady — Definition, Word History, and First Known UsesupportsEtymology and First Known Use

Publishes the recorded English history and pre-twelfth-century horizon.

ORIGINAL ↗
Lady — American Heritage DictionarycontextHeadword etymology

Independently publishes the Old and Middle English development.

ORIGINAL ↗
OPEN CANONICAL EDGE 852 ↗
03

TRANSITIVE DESCENDANT CLOSURE

EVERY REVIEWED BRANCH FROM HERE

1

This is the complete downstream closure currently supported by the canonical graph. Every displayed step is a real reviewed edge with its own sound claim, meaning claim, scholar, confidence, and citations.

UNIQUE DESCENDANT NODES
1
REVIEWED EDGES
1
DEEPEST PATH
1
MODERN DOSSIERS REACHED
1
lady1 connected node
HISTORICAL STEP 011 EDGE
STEP 01continuationestablished
Middle Englishlady→Present-Day English · before the 12th century–todayladywoman of rank; polite term for a woman
SOUND
Middle English lady continues into modern lady with stabilized spelling and pronunciation.
MEANING
Household rank develops into aristocratic and polite forms of address.
Merriam-Webster Editors · American Heritage Dictionary Editors2 CITATIONSEDGE 852 ↗
Lady — Definition, Word History, and First Known Use · Etymology and First Known Use ↗Lady — American Heritage Dictionary · Headword etymology ↗

“Every” means every descendant in the reviewed SET-U graph. It does not convert missing scholarship or missing ingestion into a claim of historical completeness. The coverage ledger remains the honest denominator.

04

RECORDED EVIDENCE

ATTESTATIONS / FIRST KNOWN USE

0
NO RECORDED WITNESS ATTACHED.

The reviewed graph does not yet attach a source-reported or directly inspected witness to this canonical form.

05

EDITORIAL REUSE

WORD DOSSIERS USING THIS NODE

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02ladylady · established