A man free-born, a freeholder; one next in order to the gentry.

Arthur, William (1857) An Etymological Dictionary of Family and Christian Names. New York: Sheldon, Blakeman. Public Domain.

YEOMAN. A freeholder; the first degree of commoners. Some " define a Yeoman to be a free-born Englishman, wlio may lay out of his own free land in revenue to the sum of forty shillings." Bailey. Under the feudal system a knight's fee was twenty pounds, whence it would follow, that an ordinary yeoman's revenue was one-tenth part of that of the knight ; though some Yeomen, for example tiaose of Kent, were much richer. See Wliatman.

Lower, Mark A (1860) Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom. London: J.R. Smith. Public Domain.