peerage

From Middle English perage, equivalent to peer +‎ -age. Doublet of parage.

peerage (countable and uncountable, plural peerages)

1. Peers as a group; the titled nobility or aristocracy.
2. The rank or title of a peer or peeress.
   • 1904–1905, Baroness Orczy [i.e., Emma Orczy], “The Tremarn Case”, in The Case of Miss Elliott, London: T[homas] Fisher Unwin, published 1905, →OCLC; republished as popular edition, London: Greening & Co., 1909, OCLC 11192831, quoted in The Case of Miss Elliott (ebook no. 2000141h.html), Australia: Project Gutenberg of Australia, February 2020:

     “Two or three months more went by ; the public were eagerly awaiting the arrival of this semi-exotic claimant to an English peerage, and sensations, surpassing those of the Tichbourne case, were looked forward to with palpitating interest. […]”

3. A book listing such people and their families.

• peerdom
• peership

• aristocracy
• bunyip aristocracy