peer of the realm

noun

, plural peers of the realm.

1. any of a class of peers in Great Britain and Ireland entitled by heredity to sit in the House of Lords.

peer of the realm

noun

1. (in Great Britain and Northern Ireland) any member of the nobility entitled to sit in the House of Lords

Word History and Origins

Origin of peer of the realm¹

First recorded in 1585–95

Example Sentences

A magazine editor — and peer of the realm — once derided the young Queen Elizabeth’s voice as “that of a priggish schoolgirl” and dismissed some of her entourage as “a second-rate lot,” and the writer Malcolm Muggeridge poked fun at the monarchy as an “ersatz religion” and a “royal soap opera.”

From Los Angeles Times

He will be remembered as a first minister, as a Peer of the Realm and as a Nobel Prize Winner.

From BBC

“You read me a lesson? I? A peer of the realm? And you, from the place where you come from?”

From The Guardian

But he keeps turning up in Jenkins’s life, somehow becoming more successful and more full of himself at every turn, first as a businessman, then as a soldier, then as a Member of Parliament and a peer of the realm.

From The New Yorker

He might have been a peer of the realm, but he was a Jewish guy whose family had moved from Odessa to Shoreditch when he was a kid.

From Slate