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emperor

noun

Simple meaning

The male ruler of an empire.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

ehmperer

Say the bold part a little louder.

US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈɛmpɚɚ

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

  1. Any monarch ruling an empire, irrespective of gender, with "empress" contrasting to mean the consort of an emperor.

  2. The male ruler of an empire

  3. political theory

    Specifically, the ruler of the Holy Roman Empire; the world-monarch.

  4. A large, relatively valuable marble in children's games.

  5. Large moth of temperate forests of Eurasia having heavily scaled transparent wings

  6. entomology

    Any of various butterflies of the subfamily Charaxinae.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
B1 · Intermediate (estimated)
Frequency
Moderately Common
Typical Use
Neutral / general English

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: Any monarch ruling an empire, irrespective of gender, with "empress" contrasting to mean the consort of an emperor.

Used this way, emperor is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Not strongly marked
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
Matter-of-fact
Usage feel
Neutral and straightforward

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

More ways to use emperor

  • “The Investiture Controversy was a conflict between the Emperor and the Pope.”noun

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

new emperoremperor alexanderfirst emperoryoung emperorgreat emperorbyzantine emperorlate emperor

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

  • emperor butterflynounCompound term

    Large richly colored butterfly.

  • emperor mothnounCompound term

    Large moth of temperate forests of Eurasia having heavily scaled transparent wings.

  • emperor of romenounCompound term

    Sovereign of the Roman Empire.

  • emperor penguinnounCompound term

    The largest penguin.

  • holy roman emperornounCompound term

    Sovereign of the Holy Roman Empire.

  • purple emperornounCompound term

    Large European butterfly the male of which has wings shaded with purple.

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.