The honorific could be compared more or less with "Edler" in Austria or "Junker" in Germany, though due to circumstances of German and especially Prussian history, "Junker" assumed connotations of militarism absent from the Dutch equivalent. Ranking this with the English nobility, it is roughly comparable with "The Honourable" when the untitled person is a son or daughter of a baron, viscount, or the younger son of an earl; or "Lord" or "Lady" when the person belongs to the old untitled but high-ranking (Dutch) nobility from before 1815 (e.g. "Heer van X" or Lord of X).