3. A person of high rank. [Obs.]
She's a duchess, a great estate.
Latimer.
Herod on his birthday made a supper to his lords, high captains, and chief estates of Galilee.
Mark vi.
21. 4. A property which a person possesses; a fortune; possessions, esp. property in land; also, property of
all kinds which a person leaves to be divided at his death.
See what a vast estate he left his son.
Dryden. 5. The state; the general body politic; the common-wealth; the general interest; state affairs. [Obs.]
I call matters of estate not only the parts of sovereignty, but whatsoever . . . concerneth manifestly any
great portion of people.
Bacon. 6. pl. The great classes or orders of a community or state (as the clergy, the nobility, and the commonalty
of England) or their representatives who administer the government; as, the estates of the realm which
are (1) the lords spiritual, (2) the lords temporal, (3) the commons.
7. (Law) The degree, quality, nature, and extent of one's interest in, or ownership of, lands, tenements,
etc.; as, an estate for life, for years, at will, etc. Abbott.
The fourth estate, a name often given to the public press.
Estate
(Es*tate"), v. t.
1. To establish. [Obs.] Beau. & Fl.
2. Tom settle as a fortune. [Archaic] Shak.
3. To endow with an estate. [Archaic]
Then would I . . .
Estate them with large land and territory.
Tennyson.
