baronn.

Etymology: Early Middle English barun, -oun, < Old French barun, -on (object case), ber (subject case) (= Provençal bar, accusative barón, baró, Spanish varon, Portuguese varão, Italian barone) < late Latin baro, -ōnem, of which the ordinary sense was ‘man’ (interchanging in Salic Law with homo), especially in relation to some one else, as when we say ‘the king's man,’ passing on one side into ‘servant, vassal,’ on another into ‘man as opposed to slave, freeman,’ also as opposed to wife ‘husband,’ as opposed to female ‘male.’ Isidore explains Mercenarii, as ‘qui serviunt accepta mercede, iidem et barones Graeco nomine, quod sint fortes in laboribus,’ (connecting it with βαρύς); Cornutus (on Persius Sat. v.) explains barones (to which he attributes a Gaulish origin) as ‘servos militum, qui utique stultissimi sunt, servos videlicet stultorum.’ This seems to point to the classical Latin bāro, -ōnem ‘simpleton, blockhead, dunce’; but there is nothing else to show whether this is the same word as baro ‘man.’ The laws of the Alemanns have in the same sense barus: if this were the original form, baro would be an augmentative. The ulterior origin is unknown. It has been conjecturally referred to a Celtic *bar ‘hero’ (which seems a figment); Old High German bero < Germanic *beron- ‘bearer, carrier’; a hypothetical Germanic *bar-, with same sense; Old English beorn, ‘warrior, brave, hero’; and Germanic barn ‘bairn, child’; of which some are purely hypothetical, and others fail to explain the form or sense, or both.