king

English Online Dictionary. What means king‎? What does king mean?

English

Alternative forms

• kyng, kynge (archaic)
• kinge (obsolete)

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation, General American) enPR: kĭng; IPA^(key): /kɪŋ/
  • (US, pre-/ŋ/ tensing) IPA^(key): [kʰiŋ]
• Rhymes: -ɪŋ

Etymology 1

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.

Noun

king (plural kings)

1. A male monarch; a man who heads a monarchy; in an absolute monarchy, the supreme ruler of his nation.

2. The monarch with the most power and authority in a monarchy, regardless of sex.
3. A powerful or majorly influential person.
4. (countable or uncountable) Something that has a preeminent position.
5. A component of certain games.
   2. (chess) 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.
   4. (card games) A playing card with the letter "K" and the image of a king on it, the thirteenth card in a given suit.

      Hypernym: court card

   5. 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.
   6. The central pin or skittle in bowling games.
6. (UK, slang) A king skin.

7. A male dragonfly; a drake.
8. A king-sized bed.
9. (graph theory) A vertex in a directed graph which can reach every other vertex via a path with a length of at most 2.

Synonyms

• Rex (the reigning king, formal), roy (obsolete, formal)

Coordinate terms

• (monarch): caesar, emperor, empress, kaiser, maharajah, prince, princess, queen, regent, royalty, shah, tsar, viceroy
• (playing card): ace, jack, joker, queen

Derived terms

Descendants

Translations

See also

• ♔, ♚

Verb

king (third-person singular simple present kings, present participle kinging, simple past and past participle kinged)

1. To crown king, to make (a person) king.
   • 1982, South Atlantic Modern Language Association, South Atlantic Review, Volume 47, page 16,

     The kinging of Macbeth is the business of the first part of the play […] .
2. To rule over as king.
3. To perform the duties of a king.
   • 1918, Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen, The Railroad Trainman, Volume 35, page 675,

     He had to do all his kinging after supper, which left him no time for roystering with the nobility and certain others.
4. To assume or pretend preeminence (over); to lord it over.
5. To promote a piece of draughts/checkers that has traversed the board to the opposite side, that piece subsequently being permitted to move backwards as well as forwards.
6. To dress and perform as a drag king.

Translations

Etymology 2

Noun

king (plural kings)

1. Alternative form of qing (“Chinese musical instrument”)

Anagrams

• gink

Estonian

Etymology

From Proto-Finnic *kenkä. Cognate with Finnish kenkä.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈkinɡ̊/, [ˈkiŋɡ̊]

Noun

king (genitive kinga, partitive kinga)

1. shoe

Declension

Quotations

Kapampangan

Alternative forms

• keng
• qng̃, qng, queng, quing (Spanish variant)

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kɪŋ/ [kɪŋ]

Preposition

king

1. indirect object marker: of, to, at, on, in, into, onto, among, around, for

See also

Manx

Noun

king m

1. inflection of kione:
   1. genitive singular
   2. nominative plural

Mutation

Middle English

Alternative forms

• kenin, kening, kinig (in compounds, toponymic)
• gug, kug (in compounds, influenced by Old Norse (see etymology))
• knyng (transmission error)
• chinge, chinȝ, cing, cining, cinȝ, ging, keing, keng, kingk, kingue, kining, kink, kyng, kynge

Etymology

Inherited from the Old English cyning, from Proto-West Germanic *kuning, from Proto-Germanic *kuningaz. The forms kug (attested in the compounds kugdom, kuglond, and kugriche) and gug (attested in the compound guglond) show the influence of the Old Norse konungr, whence they borrow their root vowel. The early forms featuring syncope (chinge, chinȝ, cing, and cinȝ) may have long ī.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kinɡ/, [kiŋɡ]

Noun

king (nominative plural kinges, also the early forms kingas or kingæs)

1. king (monarch)
2. king (chess piece)

Derived terms

Descendants

• English: king (see there for further descendants)
• Scots: keeng, king
• Yola: kinge, king

References

• “king, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.

Swedish

Etymology

Borrowed from English king.

Adjective

king

1. (slang) great, awesome

   Synonym: kunglig

2. (games) Synonym of ruta (“foursquare”).

Usage notes

Uninflected.

References

• Slangopedia

Tok Pisin

Etymology

From English king.

Noun

king

1. king

Yola

Noun

king

1. Alternative form of kinge

References

• Jacob Poole (d. 1827) (before 1828) William Barnes, editor, A Glossary, With some Pieces of Verse, of the old Dialect of the English Colony in the Baronies of Forth and Bargy, County of Wexford, Ireland, London: J. Russell Smith, published 1867, page 96