Lord

The term is unusual in that its religious significance is not original, but a metaphorical extension of the Anglo-Saxon secular status term, hlaford . Most religious swearing terms derive from the name of the deity, Christ, or the saints. Lord derives from the root form hlafweard , meaning literally “the guardian of the loaf,” referring to the social role of the lord as provider for his followers. The Old English vocabulary had several terms denoting “the person in power,” which after the conversion to Christianity started to be used as titles of God. Among them were Liffrea (“Lord of Life”), Metod and Wealdend (“Ruler”), and Frea (“Lord”). Hlaford was used in this fashion somewhat later, ca. 1000, toward the end of the Anglo-Saxon period, by Ælfric, in the phrase “Sy lof ?am Hlaforde” (“Praise be to the Lord”).

In Middle English the term started to be used more freely. Chaucer’s irrepressible Wife of Bath, who uses a great range of exclamations, refers to “Lord Jhesu” ( Prologue l. 146), and uses the exclamation “Lord Crist!” (l. 469), while the author himself in his Retractions at the end of the great work, thanks “Lord Jhesu Crist” (l. 1,088). The independent use “O Lord” began around 1400 and was general up to the seventeenth century. Interestingly, it was not included in the list of forbidden sacred names detailed in the legislation of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, which focused mainly on the names of God, Jesus, Christ, and the Devil. Although lord was never a seriously profane term, euphemistic or “minced” forms develop in the eighteenth century, generating a variety of idiomatic formulas, most of which thrived in the Victorian era:

1725 Lud 1765 Lawks 1835 Lor 1844 Law sakes! 1861 Law 1865 Law a mussy (Lord have mercy) 1870s Lawdy! 1898 Lumme! (Lord love me)

These are largely British, since in American parlance, Lord has generally had less profane resonance. However, H.L. Mencken, following an unpublished source, gives laud, law, lawks, lawdy , and lawsy (1963, 395). Generally speaking, lumme! is today the sole survivor of this now obsolete field, since “Oh Lord!” has become an acceptably mild exclamation.