Yeonggam (令監) was originally a title of honor for very high officials. In the Joseon era, senior officials from dangsang rank down to the junior second rank were called yeonggam. Those of even higher rank — senior second, junior first, and senior first — were not yeonggam but daegam (大監), while the king himself was sanggam (上監). In short, sanggam–daegam–yeonggam formed a graded hierarchy of honorifics. According to Yi Su-gwang's Jibong Yuseol, the title was originally yeonggong (令公) and only began to be rendered as yeonggam in the 1590s. Over the centuries this title for a high official gradually slipped — first to "a man of standing in his later years," then simply to "an old man." At last, today, it has become an affectionate term an aging wife uses for her husband. A title that need not envy that of a chief minister settled, in the end, into the name for the old man down the lane — and for one's elderly husband.