a, m. a steward at the king’s table; this word occurs in various forms throughout the Saxon parts of Germany, Holland, Belgium, Friesland, Brabant, etc. Du Cange records a ‘drossardus Brabantiae;’ it is in mid. Lat. spelt drossatus, Germ. and Saxon drost, land-drost, reichs-drost (drozerus regni), Fris. drusta, vide Grimm; the Dutch prefer the form drossardus: in the court of the king of Norway the office of dróttseti is not heard of before the beginning of the 12th century (the passage Bs. i. 37 is monkish and of late composition), and is there a kind of head-cook or steward at the king’s table, who was to be elected from the king’s skutilsveinar; d. spurði hvat til matar skyldi búa, the d. asked the king what meat they should dress, Fms. vii. 159 (about A. D. 1125), ix. 249, x. 147; d. ok skenkjari, N. G. L. ii. 413, 415; cp. also Hirðskrá (N. G. L. l. c.) ch. 26, Fms. x. 100 refers to the drost of the German emperor. In the 14th century the dróttseti became a high officer in Sweden and Denmark. The derivation from drótt and seti (seti can only mean a sitter, not one who makes to sit, cp. land-seti, a land-sitter, a tenant) is dubious; the Norse word may be an etymologising imitation of the mid. Lat. drossatus.