What is "overlord"

Overlord \O"ver*lord`\, n. One who is lord over another or others; a superior lord; a master.
--Freeman.

c.1200, from over- + lord (n.). Chosen 1943 as the Allied code-word for the D-Day invasion of northern France.

n. 1 A ruler of other rulers. 2 Anyone with overarching power or authority in a given domain.

n. a person who has general authority over others [syn: master, lord]

An overlord in the English feudal system was a lord of a manor who had subinfeudated a particular manor, estate or fee, to a tenant. The tenant thenceforth owed to the overlord one of a variety of services, usually military service or serjeanty, depending on which form of tenure (i.e. feudal tenancy contract) the estate was held under. The highest overlord of all, or paramount lord, was the monarch, who due to his ancestor William the Conqueror's personal conquest of the Kingdom of England, owned by inheritance from him all the land in England under allodial title and had no superior overlord, "holding from God and his sword", although certain monarchs, notably King John (1199-1216) purported to grant the Kingdom of England to the Pope, who would thus have become overlord to English monarchs. A paramount lord may thus be seen to occupy the apex of the feudal pyramid, or the root of the feudal tree, and such allodial title is also termed "radical title" (from Latin radix, root), "ultimate title" and "final title". William the Conqueror immediately set about granting tenancies on his newly won lands, in accordance with feudal principles. The monarch's immediate tenants were the tenants-in-chief, usually military magnates, who held the highest status in feudal society below the monarch. The tenants-in-chief usually held multiple manors or other estates from the monarch, often as feudal barons (or "barons by tenure") who owed their royal overlord an enhanced and onerous form of military service, and subinfeudated most to tenants, generally their own knights or military followers, keeping only a few in demesne. This created a mesne lord - tenant relationship. The knights in turn subinfeudated to their own tenants, creating a further subsidiary mesne lord - tenant relationship. Over the centuries for any single estate the process was in practice repeated numerous times. In early times following the Norman Conquest of 1066 and the establishment of feudalism, land was usually transferred by subinfeudation, rarely by alienation (i.e. sale), which latter in the case of tenants-in-chief required royal licence, and the holder of an estate at any particular time, in order to gain secure tenure, and if challenged by another claimant, needed to prove "devolution of title" evidenced by legal deeds or muniments back up the chain of subinfeudations to a holder whose title was beyond doubt, for example one who had received the estate as a grant by royal charter witnessed and sealed by substantial persons. Although feudal land tenure in England was abolished by the Tenures Abolition Act 1660, in modern English conveyancing law the need to prove devolution of title persisted until recent times, due to a "legal fiction" (grounded in reality) that all land titles were held by the monarch's subjects as a result of a royal grant. Proving devolution of title is no longer necessary since the creation of the land registry and the requirement to compulsorily register all land transactions on this governmental record, which registration provides a virtually unchallengeable and perfectly secure title of ownership.

Overlord is a comic-book supervillain created by Erik Larsen, first appearing in Larsen's Savage Dragon series and serving as that title's first principal villain. Like many of Larsen's characters, Overlord was based on a character that Larsen had created during his childhood. First conceived as "Bronzeman", a sort of criminal counterpart to Iron Man, Larsen later found he disliked the name and changed it to Overlord. The character's costume also went through multiple revisions before Larsen was satisfied.

Overlord is a 1975 black-and-white film written and directed by Stuart Cooper. Set around the D-Day invasion ('Operation Overlord'), Overlord is a war film about a young soldier's meditations on being part of the war machinery, and his premonitions of death. The film was entered into the 25th Berlin International Film Festival, where it won the Silver Bear - Special Jury Prize.

In the feudal system an overlord was a lord of a manor who had subinfeudated a particular estate to a tenant.

Overlord may also refer to:

Overlord is a combat flight simulator by Rowan Software. It was released in 1994 for Amiga and PC MS-DOS platforms. It is based on Operation Overlord, the Allied invasion of continental Europe during World War II. The player is tasked with flying a series of historically accurate missions for the Royal Air Force, flying Spitfire IX, Hawker Typhoon, and Mustang III aircraft.

Overlord is an action role-playing video game developed by Triumph Studios and published by Codemasters for the Xbox 360, Microsoft Windows and PlayStation 3. The former two versions of the game were released in North America on June 26, 2007, then later in Europe on June 29 and Australia on July 6, 2007.

Development on the game began in early 2006 and the game was first announced in May of the same year, with actual gameplay demonstrated at E3 2006. After over a year and a half of development, its release in 2007 was met with generally favourable reviews and helped boost overall sales for Codemasters that year. An expansion pack entitled Overlord: Raising Hell was announced on November 1, 2007 and released February 15, 2008 along with additional multiplayer maps and a local split screen co-op mode. A PlayStation 3 version of the game also entitled Overlord: Raising Hell was released in 2008 in Europe on June 20, and June 24 in North America, which included both the original game and its downloadable content. A sequel for all three systems entitled Overlord II was announced the same year on August 13 along with a spin-off for the Wii entitled Overlord: Dark Legend and a Nintendo DS game called Overlord: Minions. A Linux version is under development.

Overlord is set in a fantasy world, where the player takes the role of a resurrected warrior known simply as The Overlord who has control over hordes of gremlin-like creatures known as "minions". The player must defeat seven corrupt ruling heroes in order to reconquer the lands and establish his lordship over its inhabitants. The game features a corruption feature, similar to that of the Fable games, but allowing the player to "be evil... or really evil," where certain actions and choices affect different aspects of the story and gameplay. While the Overlord is controlled in a third person perspective, the way minions are controlled brings elements of real-time strategy and upgrades bring those of role-playing games. The game also uses black humour and is often a satire and parody of the traditional fantasy setting and plot.

is a Japanese light novel series written by Kugane Maruyama and illustrated by so-bin. It began serialization online in 2010, before being acquired by Enterbrain. Ten volumes have been published since July 30, 2012. A manga adaptation by Satoshi Ōshio, with art by Hugin Miyama, began serialization in Kadokawa Shoten's manga magazine Comp Ace from November 26, 2014. Both the light novels and the manga are licensed in North America by Yen Press, with a release date of November 08, 2016. A 13-episode anime television series adaptation by Madhouse aired between July 7 and September 29, 2015.