leman

• leaman
• lemman (13th–17th centuries)
• lemon (15th–16th centuries)

From Middle English lemman, variant of leofman, from Old English *lēofmann ("lover; sweetheart"; attested as a personal name), equivalent to lief +‎ man ("beloved person").

• IPA^(key): /ˈlɛmən/, /ˈliːmən/
• Rhymes: -ɛmən

leman (plural lemans)

1. (archaic) One beloved; a lover, a sweetheart of either sex (especially a secret lover, gallant, or mistress).
   • 1485, Sir Thomas Malory, chapter v, in Le Morte Darthur, book VI:

     Thenne within an houre there came the knyghte to whome the pauelione ought / And he wende that his lemā had layne in that bedde / and soo he laid hym doune besyde syr Launcelot / and toke hym in his armes and beganne to kysse hym / And whanne syre launcelot felte a rough berd kyssyng hym / he starte oute of the bedde lyghtely / and the other knyȝt after hym / and eyther of hem gate their swerdes in theire handes

   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, I.i:

     Faire Venus seemde vnto his bed to bring / Her, whom he waking euermore did weene, / To be the chastest flowre, that ay did spring / On earthly braunch, the daughter of a king, / Now a loose Leman to vile seruice bound […].

   • 1819, Walter Scott, Ivanhoe:

     The prisoner I speak of is better booty—a jolly monk riding to visit his leman, an I may judge by his horse-gear and wearing apparel.

2. (often negative) A paramour.
   • 1387 to 1400 Geoffrey Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, "The Manciple's Tale":

     Ther nys no difference, trewely,

     Bitwixe a wyf that is of heigh degree,

     If of hir body dishonest she bee,

     And a povre wenche, oother than thisֵ—

     If it so be they werke bothe amys—

     But that the gentile, in estaat above,

     She shal be cleped his lady, as in love;

     And for that oother is a povre womman,

     She shal be cleped his wenche or his lemman […]

   • 1932, Lewis Grassic Gibbon, Sunset Song:

     And he sent the news to William the Lyon, sitting drinking the wine and fondling his bonny lemans in Edinburgh Town, and William made him the Knight of Kinraddie […].

• Elman, Melan, lamen