mayoral

See also: Mayoral

English

Etymology 1

From mayor +‎ -al.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /meɪˈɔː.ɹəl/, /ˈmɛə.ɹəl/, /mɛːɹɘl/
• (US) IPA^(key): /meɪˈɔ.ɹəl/, /ˈmeɪ.ə.ɹəl/, /mɛːɹɘl/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɔːɹəl

Adjective

mayoral (comparative more mayoral, superlative most mayoral)

1. Relating to a mayor (or the office of the mayor).

   The mayoral seal was applied to all official correspondence of the mayor.

   • 2019 October 25, David Spencer, “Hilarious Han is taking Taiwan’s voters for fools once more”, in Taiwan News‎^[1], archived from the original on 3 November 2019:

     Let’s have a quick recap of some of Han’s more rational campaign pledges during last year's mayoral campaign to see how he has performed in his current position. We will leave aside things like building a Disneyland, drilling for oil off the Taiping Islands, constructing an F1 circuit, and turning Qijin Island into Taiwan’s Las Vegas — after all, these sorts of things take time to deliver.

Translations

relating to a mayor (or the office of the mayor)

• German: Bürgermeister-, bürgermeisterlich
• Hungarian: polgármesteri (hu)
• Italian: comunale (it)

Etymology 2

From Spanish mayoral.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˌmɑːjə(ʊ)ˈral/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˌmɑjəˈrɑl/

Noun

mayoral (plural mayorals)

1. A Spanish-speaking overseer of a bull ranch.
   • 1972, Stephen Marlowe, “Only Goya”, in Colossus: A Novel about Goya and a World Gone Mad, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company, →LCCN, book 5, page 363:

     A thrust of the lance, and the mayoral says bullring or slaughterhouse.

   • 1974, William Hjortsberg, “Miércoles”, in Toro! Toro! Toro!, New York, N.Y.: Simon and Schuster, →ISBN, page 45:

     The mayoral was dressed in much the same fashion as the other men but instead of a lance he carried a short braided quirt to emphasize his almost feudal authority. As overseer of the ranch, his commands were limited to monosyllables; more frequently, he merely gestured with the quirt.

   • 1976, Doddy Hay, “The Toro Bravo”, in The Bullfight, London: New English Library, →ISBN, page 19, column 1:

     From the moment the owner and the mayoral decide to call him to the plaza the bull’s life becomes a long succession of shutters and chutes; […]

2. (historical) A Spanish-speaking overseer of an estate’s slaves.
   • 1840, [Juan Francisco Manzano], translated by R[ichard] R[obert] Madden, “The Sugar Estate”, in Poems by a Slave in the Island of Cuba, Recently Liberated; […], London: Thomas Ward and Co., […], canto II, page 40:

     The mayoral who oversees the band, / Before me now is standing, whip in hand, / The straw-hat slouching o’er his olive face, / Sturdy in figure, active in his pace; / Nor coat nor waistcoat incommode his breast.

   • 1842 August 6, Republicano [pseudonym], “Two Months on a Sugar Plantation in Cuba”, in Massachusetts Ploughman, volume 1, number 45, Boston, Mass., page [4], column 5:

     All mayorals of this country, wear a sword about four feet long; and ride about the estate on horse back. […] The counter mayorals are only allowed a whip. They, too, as soon as promoted, with whip in hand assume a bearing and deportment towards their fellows that are cruel and sometimes barbarous; always singing out at the top of their voice. ‘Apresuran! Apresuran!’ (hasten, hasten,) and afterwards laying the whip on the backs of those that do not work as they think they ought.

   • 1842 November 28, “Regulations respecting Slaves”, in Correspondence with British Commissioners and with Foreign Powers Relative to the Slave Trade [Class A and B] (Irish University Press Series of British Parliamentary Papers), number 23, Shannon, County Clare: Irish University Press, published 1969, →ISBN, page 223:

     When the denunciation shall have for object to reveal a talking together, or the project of some attempt by a slave or free man against the owner, his wife, son, parents, administrator or mayoral of the estate, the owner is recommended to use generosity towards the servant or servants who have so well fulfilled the duties of faithful and good servants, on account of its so much interesting them to offer a stimulus to fidelity.

   • 1971, Gwendolyn Midlo Hall, “Suicide among Slaves”, in Social Control in Slave Plantation Societies: A Comparison of St. Domingue and Cuba (The Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science; 89th series, number 1), Baltimore, Md.; London: The Johns Hopkins Press, →ISBN, section II (The Problem of the Survival of the Slave Population), footnote 38, pages 21–22:

     Wurdemann gave an interesting account of the consequences of a suicide which he witnessed in mid-nineteenth-century Cuba. A Cuban doctor left a suicide note with the mayoral of the estate which Wurdemann was visiting, then drove off the estate and killed himself. Although the suicide note absolved the mayoral of any guilt in connection with the doctor’s death, the mayoral concealed the note from the public officer so that he would not be brought within the clutches of the law.

   • 2015, Tony M. Kail, “Palo Mayombe and Bantu traditions (Las Reglas de Congo)”, in Narco-Cults: Understanding the Use of Afro-Caribbean and Mexican Religious Cultures in the Drug Wars, Boca Raton, Fla.: CRC Press, →ISBN, pages 120–121:

     Kenneth Routon (2006) shares an interview with a Brillumba practitioner who speaks about the history of the Rama: […] A black Congo slave from the Carabali tribe, in a moment of rage killed the mayoral. He was tired of his abuse and so he took his machete from him and severed his head.

French

Adjective

mayoral (feminine mayorale, masculine plural mayoraux, feminine plural mayorales)

1. Alternative spelling of maïoral

Further reading

• “mayoral”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Old Spanish

Etymology

From mayor (“mayor, main”) +‎ -al.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /majoˈɾal/

Noun

mayoral m (plural mayorales)

1. foreman, overseer
   • c. 1200, Almerich, Fazienda de Ultramar, f. 49r:

     […] e enbẏo amonte libano .lxxx. mil om̃s q̃ taiaſſen madera. e .lxx. mil maçoneros pora la obra de la piedra ſin los maẏorales q̃ les comendauan q̃ auien a fer.

     […] And he sent to Mount Lebanon eighty thousand men to cut wood and seventy thousand masons for the working of stone, besides the foremen who commanded them what they were to do.

Descendants

• Spanish: mayoral

Spanish

Etymology

Inherited from Old Spanish mayoral. Analyzable as mayor +‎ -al.

Pronunciation

 

• IPA^(key): /maʝoˈɾal/ [ma.ʝoˈɾal]

• IPA^(key): (everywhere but Argentina and Uruguay) /maʝoˈɾal/ [ma.ʝoˈɾal]
• IPA^(key): (Buenos Aires and environs) /maʃoˈɾal/ [ma.ʃoˈɾal]
• IPA^(key): (elsewhere in Argentina and Uruguay) /maʒoˈɾal/ [ma.ʒoˈɾal]

• Rhymes: -al
• Syllabification: ma‧yo‧ral

Noun

mayoral m (plural mayorales)

1. farm manager, steward
2. foreman, overseer
3. head shepherd

Further reading

• “mayoral”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 2024 December 10