allegiance

English

Alternative forms

• allegiaunce (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English alegiaunce, from Anglo-Norman alegaunce (“loyalty of a liege-servant to one's lord”), variant of Old French ligeance, from lige (“vassal, liegeman”). More at liege.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /əˈliː.d͡ʒəns/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

Noun

allegiance (countable and uncountable, plural allegiances)

1. Loyalty to some cause, nation or ruler.

   Synonyms: adherence, fidelity, loyalty

   • 1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XI, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume III, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 83:

     With what a feeling of joyful security did her heart go back to its old allegiance! Till now she had scarcely been aware of its strength, for she had known it but by its disappointment—now she fully admitted that early and passionate emotion with which Robert Evelyn had inspired her was indeed her destiny;...

   • 2024 September 7, David Hytner, “Rice and Grealish start new England era with Nations League victory in Ireland”, in The Guardian‎^[1]:

     It was always going to be a hot occasion for Declan Rice and Jack Grealish, the one-time Ireland internationals who subsequently switched their allegiances.

Derived terms

• counterallegiance
• oath of allegiance
• pledge of allegiance

 

Translations

loyalty to some cause, nation or ruler

• Bulgarian: вярност (bg) (vjarnost), преданост (bg) (predanost), лоялност (bg) (lojalnost)
• Catalan: lleialtat (ca) f, fidelitat (ca) f
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 忠誠／忠诚 (zh) (zhōngchéng)

• Czech: oddanost f
• Danish: troskap c
• Dutch: trouw (nl), getrouwheid (nl), loyaliteit (nl), trouwhartigheid, aanhang (nl) m
• Esperanto: fideleco
• Faroese: trúskapur m
• Finnish: kuuliaisuus (fi), uskollisuus (fi)
• French: fidélité (fr) f, loyauté (fr) f, allégeance (fr) f
• German: Treue (de), Loyalität (de), Treuherzigkeit (de), Gefolgschaft (de) f, Gefolgschaftstreue f
• Irish: dílseacht f
• Italian: fedeltà (it), lealtà (it)
• Japanese: 忠誠 (ja) (ちゅうせい chūsei)
• Korean: 충성 (ko) (chungseong)
• Latin: allegiantia f, fidēlitās, fidēs, dēvōtiō, obsequium n
• Maori: piripono
• Middle English: legiaunce, alegiaunce
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: troskap m, truskap m

  Nynorsk: truskap m

• Papiamentu: fidelidat
• Persian: تعهد (fa) (ta'ahhod), وفاداری (fa) (vafâdâri)
• Polish: wierność (pl), posłuszeństwo (pl), lojalność (pl)
• Portuguese: fidelidade (pt), lealdade (pt), adesão (pt) f
• Romanian: fidelitate (ro) f, loialitate (ro) f, credință (ro) f
• Russian: ве́рность (ru) f (vérnostʹ), пре́данность (ru) f (prédannostʹ)
• Serbo-Croatian: odanost (sh), lojalnost (sh)
• Slovene: zvestoba (sl) f
• Spanish: fidelidad (es) f, lealtad (es) f
• Swedish: lojalitet (sv), trohet (sv) c

References

• Oxford English Dictionary, 1884–1928, and First Supplement, 1933.