king
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: enpr: kĭng
ipa: /kɪŋ/
text: Audio — the king
note: US, pre-/ŋ/ tensing
ipa: [kʰiŋ]
note: without NG-coalescence
ipa: [kʰɪŋɡ]
rhymes: -ɪŋ
Forms: form: kings
form: kyng
form: kynge
form: kinge
Etymology: From Middle English king, kyng, from Old English cyng, cyning (“king”), from Proto-West Germanic *kuning, from Proto-Germanic *kuningaz, *kunungaz (“king”), equivalent to kin + -ing. Doublet of cyning and knez.
Cognate with Scots keeng (“king”), North Frisian köning (“king”), West Frisian kening (“king”), Dutch koning (“king”), Low German Koning, Köning (“king”), German König (“king”), Danish konge (“king”), Norwegian konge, Swedish konung, kung (“king”), Icelandic konungur, kóngur (“king”), Polish ksiądz (“priest”), Russian князь (knjazʹ, “prince”), Old Church Slavonic кънѧѕь (kŭnędzĭ), Romanian chinez, Finnish kuningas (“king”), Estonian kuningas, Ingrian kunigas, Karelian kuninkas, Livvi kuńingas, Ludian kuńingas, Veps kuningaz, Võro kuning and Votic kunikaz. Eclipsed non-native Middle English roy (“king”) (Early Modern English roy), borrowed from Old French roi, rei, rai (“king”).
The verb is inherited from Middle English kyngen, *kingen (“To perform the duties of a king”), itself from the noun king, kyng.
Senses: examples: text: Henry VIII was the king of England from 1509 to 1547.
text: Charles the third became the new king of England from 2022.
glosses: A male monarch; a man who heads a monarchy; in an absolute monarchy, the supreme ruler of his nation.
examples: text: The British Parliament has had made it for it in the past the claim that it could do anything excepting convert a woman into a man.[…]And the high court [of Amsterdam] has done it by deciding that all officials and public servants shall take their oath of allegiance not to Queen Wilhelmina but to King Wilhelmina.
ref: 1891 January 3, ““King” Wilhelmina”, in The Chicago Daily Tribune, volume LI, number III, Chicago, Ill., page 5, column 7:
text: Hatshepsut was ruling as a king, not queen and she needed to be recognised as such.
ref: 2009, Charlotte Booth, “Hatshepsut”, in The Curse of the Mummy and Other Mysteries of Ancient Egypt, Oneworld Publications, →ISBN, page 93:
text: The act of perforating one’s ears could be read as a gendering performance—a modification from an overt masculinity (king) to a tempered female masculinity (king with female traits)—in which the male king was expected to adopt the quintessence of Omeppa’s female king wife, Ebulejonu, and by so doing, embody the true essence of womanhood.[…]Attah-Ebulejonu, like Hatshepsut of Egypt before her, ruled as (and was remembered as) a king, not queen, perhaps setting the precedent for the coronation of another female king, Ahebi Ugbabe, about four centuries later.[…]This time, the female king would not rule in the Igala kingdom nor would she be of Igala origin. Instead, the king would be an Igbo woman who had lived in Igalaland for many years, who had come of age and matured there and in the process had imbibed the cultural values and mores of the people with whom she had lived in exile.
ref: 2011, Nwando Achebe, “Mgbapu Ahebi: Exile in Igalaland, ca. 1895–1916”, in The Female King of Colonial Nigeria: Ahebi Ugbabe, Bloomington, Ind.; Indianapolis, Ind.: Indiana University Press, →ISBN, pages 63–64:
glosses: The monarch with the most power and authority in a monarchy, regardless of sex.
examples: text: Howard Stern styled himself as the "king of all media".
text: "I wish we were back in Tenth Street. But so many children came[…]and the Tenth Street house wasn't half big enough; and a dreadful speculative builder built this house and persuaded Austin to buy it. Oh, dear, and here we are among the rich and great; and the steel kings and copper kings and oil kings and their heirs and dauphins.[…]"
ref: 1907 August, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, chapter I, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC:
text: I'd been the dodgem car king at the Brisbane Ekka in 1975 and all those skills can flooding back[.]
ref: 1995, Paul Vautin, Turn It Up!, Sydney: Pan Macmillan Australia, page 154:
text: The truth is that [Isaac] Newton was very much a product of his time. The colossus of science was not the first king of reason, Keynes wrote after reading Newton’s unpublished manuscripts. Instead “he was the last of the magicians”.
ref: 2014 June 21, “Magician’s brain”, in The Economist, volume 411, number 8892, archived from the original on 09 Jan 2025:
glosses: A powerful or majorly influential person; someone who holds the preeminent position.
examples: text: In times of financial panic, cash is king.
text: It would be difficult, for example, to imagine a bigger, more obvious subject for comedy than the laughable self-delusion of washed-up celebrities, especially if the washed-up celebrity in question is Adam West, a camp icon who can go toe to toe with William Shatner as the king of winking self-parody.
ref: 2012 June 3, Nathan Rabin, “TV: Review: THE SIMPSONS (CLASSIC): “Mr. Plow” (season 4, episode 9; originally aired 11/19/1992)”, in The Onion A.V. Club, archived from the original on 01 Feb 2013:
glosses: Something that has a preeminent position.
examples: text: The objective of each player is to place the opponent’s king ‘under attack’ in such a way that the opponent has no legal move. […] If the arbiter observes both kings are in check, or a pawn stands on the rank furthest from its starting position, he/she shall wait until the next move is completed.
ref: 2022, “2023 Laws of Chess”, in FIDE, pages 2, 20:
topics: board-games
chess
games
glosses: A component of certain games.
The principal chess piece, that players seek to threaten with unavoidable capture to result in a victory by checkmate. It is often the tallest piece, with a symbolic crown with a cross at the top.
topics: card-games
games
glosses: A component of certain games.
A playing card with the letter "K" and the image of a king on it, the thirteenth card in a given suit.
hypernyms: court card
face card
<
playing card
<
card#Noun
coordinate_terms: queen
jack
knave
glosses: A component of certain games.
A checker (a piece of checkers/draughts) that reached the farthest row forward, thus becoming crowned (either by turning it upside-down, or by stacking another checker on it) and gaining more freedom of movement.
examples: text: In knockemdowns and bowls ten pins are used, the centre one being called the king, and the ball has to be grounded before it reaches the frame.
ref: 1878, John Henry Walsh, British Rural Sports, page 712:
glosses: A component of certain games.
The central pin or skittle in bowling games.
examples: text: Oi mate, have you got kings?
glosses: A king skin.
glosses: A male dragonfly; a drake.
examples: text: Try asking for a king-size bed next time because kings are usually firmer.
ref: 2002, Scott W. Donkin, Gerard Meyer, Peak Performance: Body and Mind, page 119:
glosses: A king-sized bed.
topics: graph-theory
mathematics
sciences
glosses: A vertex in a directed graph which can reach every other vertex via a path with a length of at most 2.
Synonyms: english: the reigning king
translation: the reigning king
word: Rex
word: roy
Coordinate terms: sense: monarch
word: caesar
sense: monarch
word: emperor
sense: monarch
word: empress
sense: monarch
word: kaiser
sense: monarch
word: maharajah
sense: monarch
word: prince
sense: monarch
word: princess
sense: monarch
word: queen
sense: monarch
word: regent
sense: monarch
word: royalty
sense: monarch
word: shah
sense: monarch
word: tsar
sense: monarch
word: viceroy
sense: playing card
word: ace
sense: playing card
word: jack
sense: playing card
word: joker
sense: playing card
word: queen
Derived terms: a cat can look at a king
a cat may look at a king
antiking
archking
bare king
bean king
blue king crab
brown king crab
California king
cash is king
Charlton Kings
chicken à la King
chicken à la king
Chilean king crab
client king
complain king
divine right of kings
drag king
dragonking
drama king
elf-king
elf king
erl-king
every king needs a queen
Fisher King
fit for a king
foreking
ghostking
god-king
god king
God Save the King
golden king crab
good-king-henry
Good King Henry
high-king
high king
history of the four kings
Homecoming King
in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king
King and Queen County
King and Queen Court House
King Arthur
king-at-arms
king bare
King Billy
kingbird
kingbolt
king brown
king cab
king cake
king card
King Charles Land
King Charles's head
King Charles spaniel
king cheetah
king cobra
king consort
King Cotton
king-count
King Country
king crab
kingcraft
king cricket
kingcroaker
king crow
kingcup
King David's harp
kingdom
King Edward
king eider
king fern
kingfish
kingfisher
king fox
King Frederick VIII Land
King George
King George County
King George whiting
king-hell
king hit
king-hit
kinghood
Kingian
kingite
King James Bible
King James Version
King Kong
kinglet
kinglike
kingling
kinglist
king mackerel
kingmaker
kingmaking
King Mob
Kingo
king of all one surveys
king-of-arms
king of arms
king of beasts
king of birds
king of clubs
king of diamonds
king of hearts
king of herrings
king of insects
King of Kings
king of kings
king of metals
King of Pop
king of six
king of spades
king of spices
king of the castle
king of the doos
king of the forest
king of the hill
King of the Jungle
king of the mountains
king of the north
king-of-the-salmon
King Otter
king oyster mushroom
king pair
king parrot
king penguin
kingpin
king post
king prawn
king quail
king rail
kingric
King Richard
Kings
King Salmon
king salmon
Kingsbury
King's Caple
King's Cliffe
King's Counsel
Kings County
King's Cross
King's Daughters
Kings Draw
kings draw
King's Dyke
King's English
king's evil
King's Gambit
Kings Heath
kingship
king shit of fuck mountain
King Shit of Turd Island
kingside
King's Indian Defence
king-sized
king size
king-size
king skin
king's knight's pawn
Kings Langley
kingslayer
King's Lynn
kingsman
King's Meaburn
king snake
kingsnake
Kings Norton
King's Norton
King's Nympton
King's Park
king's pawn
king's ransom
king's rook's pawn
King's shilling
King's Somborne
King's Sutton
Kings Sutton
Kingston
Kingstown
Kingstree
Kings Worthy
king tide
king trumpet mushroom
king vulture
kingward
kingwards
King William
King William County
King William pine
King Winter
kingwood
kingy
live like a king
Mad King George
make-king
merking
more royalist than the king
New Zealand king shag
nonking
one-eyed king
overking
palm king
pearly king
philosopher king
philosopher-king
priest-king
prom king
pumpking
rat king
red king crab
rice king
sea king
Shelsley Kings
shepherd king
shepherd kings
short king
silver king
snail king
sofa king
southern king crab
sport of kings
squirrel king
subking
suicide king
Tchang-king
Three Kings
Three Kings Islands
underking
unking
war-king
who died and made you king
wing king
woman king
Related terms: ♔
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