sovereign
English
Alternative forms
- sovran (archaic)
- soveraigne (archaic)
Etymology
From Middle English sovereyn, from Old French soverain (whence also modern French souverain), from Vulgar Latin *superānus (compare Italian sovrano, Spanish soberano) from Latin super (“above”). Spelling influenced by folk-etymology association with reign. Doublet of soprano, from the same Latin root via Italian. See also suzerain, foreign.
Pronunciation
- (UK) IPA(key): /ˈsɒv.ɹɪn/
Audio (US) (file)
Adjective
sovereign (comparative more sovereign, superlative most sovereign)
- Exercising power of rule.
- sovereign nation
- Exceptional in quality.
- (now rare) Extremely potent or effective (of a medicine, remedy etc.).
- 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, III.v:
- The soueraigne weede betwixt two marbles plaine / She pownded small, and did in peeces bruze, / And then atweene her lilly handes twaine, / Into his wound the iuyce thereof did scruze […]
- 1876, John Davies, “[Tobacco.]”, in Alexander B[alloch] Grosart, editor, The Complete Poems of Sir John Davies. Edited, with Memorial-Introduction and Notes, by the Rev. Alexander B. Grosart. In Two Volumes (Early English Poets), volume II, London: Chatto and Windus, Piccadilly, OCLC 752538909, page 226:
- (Can we date this quote?) Dryden
- a sovereign remedy
- (Can we date this quote?) South
- Such a sovereign influence has this passion upon the regulation of the lives and actions of men.
- 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, III.v:
- Having supreme, ultimate power.
- Princely; royal.
- c1610, Shakespeare, A Winters Tale, V.i:
- You pity not the state, nor the remembrance of his most sovereign name.
- c1610, Shakespeare, A Winters Tale, V.i:
- Predominant; greatest; utmost; paramount.
- (Can we date this quote?) Hooker
- We acknowledge him [God] our sovereign good.
- (Can we date this quote?) Hooker
Synonyms
Derived terms
Translations
exercising power of rule
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exceptional in quality
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Noun
sovereign (plural sovereigns)
- A monarch; the ruler of a country.
- 1594, William Shakespeare, Lvcrece (First Quarto), London: Printed by Richard Field, for Iohn Harrison, […], OCLC 236076664:
- 1667, John Milton, “Book I”, in Paradise Lost. A Poem Written in Ten Books, London: Printed [by Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […] [a]nd by Robert Boulter […] [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], OCLC 228722708; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: The Text Exactly Reproduced from the First Edition of 1667: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, OCLC 230729554, lines 242-249:
- Is this the Region, this the Soil, the Clime, / Said then the lost Archangel, this the seat / That we must change for Heaven?, this mournful gloom / For that celestial light? Be it so, since hee / Who now is Sovran can dispose and bid / What shall be right : fardest from him is best / Whom reason hath equald, force hath made supream / Above his equals. […]
- Jefferson
- No question is to be made but that the bed of the Mississippi belongs to the sovereign, that is, to the nation.
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- One who is not a subject to a ruler or nation.
- A gold coin of the United Kingdom, with a nominal value of one pound sterling but in practice used as a bullion coin.
- A very large champagne bottle with the capacity of about 25 liters, equivalent to 33⅓ standard bottles.
- Any butterfly of the tribe Nymphalini, or genus Basilarchia, as the ursula and the viceroy.
- (Britain, slang) A large, garish ring; a sovereign ring.
- 2004, December 11, "Birkenhead, Merseyside" BBC Voices recording (0:06:52)
- No, someone who wears loads of sovereigns as well loads of gold and has uh a curly perm and peroxide blonde hair, orange, orange sunbed skin and a fringe like this blow-dried to death, that’s a ‘scally’.
- 2004, December 11, "Birkenhead, Merseyside" BBC Voices recording (0:06:52)
Derived terms
Translations
monarch
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one who is not a subject to a ruler or nation
coin
See also
Verb
sovereign (third-person singular simple present sovereigns, present participle sovereigning, simple past and past participle sovereigned)
- (transitive) To rule over as a sovereign.
Anagrams
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