demesne

Etymology

From Middle English demayne, from Anglo-Norman demeyne, demene et al., Old French demeine, demaine, demeigne, domaine (“power”) (whence French domaine (“domain”)), a noun use of an adjective, from Latin dominicus (“belonging to a lord or master”), from dominus (“master, proprietor, owner”). See dame. Doublet of domain.

noun

1. A lord's chief manor place, with that part of the lands belonging thereto which has not been granted out in tenancy; a house, and the land adjoining, kept for the proprietor's own use.
   And whanne he sawe that he lete charce her oute of this land and bytoke hit me and alle this land in my demenys And when he saw that, he let chase her out of this land, and betook it me, and all this land in my demesnes. 1485, Thomas Malory, Le Morte Darthur Book XVI, Chapter vii leaf 337r
   As no one had ever bothered them you could get within a few yards and watch their bright, busy foraging among the leaves. Duffy, the Consul, said that they were there every day as he had resisted the servants' implorings to shoot them; he knew that as soon as the first shot had been fired, this decorative adjunct to his demesne would vanish for ever. 1952, Norman Lewis, Golden Earth
   This area to the west of the city had been a priory demesne in the sixteenth century, but in the frantic landgrab that followed the Restoration of the 1660s, […] 2023, Christopher Morash, Dublin: A Writer's City, Cambridge University Press, page 237
2. A region or area; a domain.