prince
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: enpr: prĭns
ipa: /pɹɪns/
rhymes: -ɪns
homophone: prints (/pɹɪnts/) stripped-by-parse_pron_post_template_fn
Forms: form: princes
Etymology: From Middle English prince, from Anglo-Norman prince, from Latin prīnceps (“first head”), from prīmus (“first”) + capiō (“seize, take”). Cognate with Old English fruma (“prince, ruler”). Doublet of princeps and principe.
Displaced native Middle English atheling, from Old English æþeling; Middle English kinebarn, from Old English cynebearn; Middle English alder, from Old English ealdor; and Middle English drighten, from Old English dryhten.
Senses: examples: text: Truely, to see our Princes all alone, sitting at their meat, beleagred round with so many talkers, whisperers, and gazing beholders, unknowne what they are or whence they come, I have often rather pittied than envied them.
ref: 1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 42, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book I, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC:
text: By his last years Erasmus realized that princes like Henry VIII and François I had deceived him in their elaborate negotiations for universal peace, but his belief in the potential of princely power for good remained undimmed.
ref: 2009, Diarmaid MacCulloch, A History of Christianity, Penguin, published 2010, page 600:
text: If Henry does not fully trust him, is it surprising? A prince is alone: in his council chamber, in his bedchamber, and finally in Hell's antechamber, stripped – as Harry Percy said – for Judgment.
ref: 2009, Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall, Fourth Estate, published 2010, page 411:
glosses: A (male) ruler, a sovereign; a king, monarch.
examples: text: Queen Elizabeth, a prince admirable above her sex.
ref: 1605, M. N. [pseudonym; William Camden], Remaines of a Greater Worke, Concerning Britaine, […], London: […] G[eorge] E[ld] for Simon Waterson, →OCLC:
glosses: A female monarch.
examples: text: He is a prince among men.
text: In some respects the intellectual is indeed closer to the philosopher than to any specialist, and the philosopher is in more than one sense a sort of prince among the intellectuals.
ref: 1949, F. A. Hayek, “The Intellectuals and Socialism”, in University of Chicago Law Review, volume 16, number 3, Chicago: University of Chicago, →DOI, page 423:
glosses: Someone who is preeminent in their field; a great person.
examples: text: He is the prince who never grew up – a one-time playboy and son of the Hollywood star Grace Kelly and Prince Rainier of Monaco.
ref: 2011 June 26, Angelique Chrisafis, The Guardian:
glosses: The (male) ruler or head of a principality.
glosses: A male member of a royal family other than the ruler; especially (in the United Kingdom) the son or grandson of the monarch.
examples: text: Prince Louis de Broglie won the 1929 Nobel Prize in Physics.
text: Conspiracy theories are always enticing: one I was involved with in the 50s was about Mayerling, the 19th-century Austrian scandal involving a prince’s lover who died in dodgy circumstances in a hunting lodge.
ref: 2011 October 16, Katharine Whitehorn, The Guardian:
glosses: A non-royal high title of nobility, especially in France and the Holy Roman Empire.
glosses: A type of court card used in tarot cards, the equivalent of the jack.
glosses: The mushroom Agaricus augustus.
glosses: Any of various nymphalid butterflies of the genus Rohana.
Hypernyms: ruler
Coordinate terms: duke
emperor
grand duke
Highness
king
Derived terms: black prince
clown prince
coprince
crown prince
grand prince
happy as a prince
merchant prince
merprince
Nigerian prince
Nigerian prince scam
pearly prince
prince bishop
prince-bishop
prince charming
prince consort
Prince Edward
Prince Edward County
Prince Frederick
princeful
Prince George
Prince George County
Prince George's County
princehood
princekin
princeless
princelet
princelike
princeling
prince-primate
prince regent
Prince Rupert
Princes End
princeship
Princes Risborough
Princetown
Princeville
Prince William County
Prince William Sound
princewood
princified
water prince
Related terms: princedom
princely
princeps
princess
principal
principality
principicide
principle