boyar

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a member of the high hereditary aristocracy of medieval and early modern Russia or another Eastern European state

   The boyar advised the prince and guarded the privileges of his noble house.

Borrowed from Russian boyarin, whose plural is boyare. The title denoted a high-ranking noble, below the ruling princes, and became especially associated in English with the Russian aristocratic order that Peter the Great abolished.

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