LAIRD

A Scottish term, applied, as Libb observes, to " a landed gentleman under the degree of a knight; but regarded by many philologists as originally equivalent to lord (quod vide). Anciently the title of laird was given only to those proprietors who held immediately of the crown; and this distinction is still preserved in the Highlands. Tho designationtiern, corresponding to laird, and rendered by it, is given to no one whose property is not worth two or three hundred per annum, while it is withheld from another whose rental extends to as many you sands; because the former acknowledges no superior under the king, while the latter does. [s. 651]