fidalgos

Updated: June 22, 2025

Perhaps this expression mean knights, or fidalgos; men of family and substance: yet it probably means nothing more than that twenty volunteer cavalry formed part of the military force of the expedition. I am apt to suspect the real sense of this passage ought to be, "requiring the court of Spain not to send off Columbus for sixty days."

Robert Kerr - A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 03 : Arranged in Systematic Order: Forming a Complete History of the Origin and Progress of Navigation, Discovery, and Commerce, by Sea and Land, from the Earliest Ages to the Present Time

Society in Portugal is very mixed. There are the old fidalgos, haughty and unapproachable, and often very poor, the descendants of the nobles whose duplicity, ability in intrigue, and want of patriotism are so often alluded to in the pages of Napier.

L. Higgin - Spanish Life in Town and Country