alderliefest

• alder-liefest

From Middle English alderlevest (“dearest of all”), from alder- (“of all”, originally genitive plural) +‎ levest (“dearest”). See lief.

alderliefest (not comparable)

1. (archaic) Most beloved.
   • 1591, William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act I, scene i], page 120, column 1:

     With you mine Alder liefeſt Soueraigne, / Makes me the bolder to ſalute my King,

   • 1879, John Kingston James, Day Dreams‎, London, page 31:

     YE alderliefest Dublin hills! / On leaving you my full heart fills, / And fill mine eyes with tears,

   • 1983, Leon Rooke, Shakespeare's Dog: A Novel‎, Knopf, →ISBN, OCLC 1037977020, page 16:

     It would be "my alderliefest this" and "my alderliefest that", enough to make even a dog's toes curl.

• Common in Elizabethan English, where it was already an archaism.

• See Thesaurus:beloved

• liedertafels