DRÓTT
nafnorðkvenkyn
f.
I. the sill or beam above a door, also a door-post (dyra-drótt).
II. household, people, Vþm. 24, (inn-drótt, sal-drótt, Lex. Poët.); dyggvar dróttir, good, trusty people, Vsp. 63; dverga d., the dwarf-people, 9; d. Írskrar þjóðar, the Irish people; Engla d., English persons, etc., Lex. Poët.; öll drótt, all people, Hkv. 2. 48: twenty people make a drótt, Edda 108.
2. esp. the king’s body-guard; cp. Goth. ga-drauhts, by which word Ulf. renders the Gr. στρατιώτης (drjûgan, pret. drauh = στρατεύειν); A. S. dright; the Scandinavian drótt thus answers to the comitatus of Tacitus, Germ. ch. 13, 14, in the Saga time called ‘hirð.’ Drótt is obsolete in prose, but occurs in Hkr. Yngl. S. ch. 20,—áðr vóru þeir (viz. the kings) dróttnar kallaðir, en konur þeirra dróttningar, en drótt hirðsveitin: poët., víg-drótt, her-d., fólk-d., hjálm-d., etc., warriors.
III. a fem. pr. name, Yngl. S. ch. 20; cp. drós.