Thane/THān/
Learn to pronounce noun HISTORICAL noun: thane; plural noun: thanes
- (in Anglo-Saxon England) a man who held land granted by the king or by a military nobleman, ranking between an ordinary freeman and a hereditary noble.
- (in Scotland) a man, often the chief of a clan, who held land from a Scottish king and ranked with an earl’s son.”the Thane of Cawdor”
Origin

Old English theg(e)n ‘servant, soldier’, of Germanic origin; related to German Degen ‘warrior’, from an Indo-European root shared by Greek teknon ‘child’, tokeus ‘parent’.