head of state
noun
Simple meaning
The chief public representative of a nation having duties, privileges and responsibilities varying greatly depending on the constitutional rules.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
hehduhvstaytSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈhɛˈdʌvsˈteɪt
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.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
The chief public representative of a nation having duties, privileges and responsibilities varying greatly depending on the constitutional rules; a monarch in a monarchy, and often styled president in a republic, but variations such as collegiality exist.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
This meaning: The chief public representative of a nation having duties, privileges and responsibilities varying greatly depending on the constitutional rules; a monarch in a monarchy, and often styled president in a republic, but variations such as collegiality exist.
Used this way, head of state is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It turns up most in ethics or values contexts.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Moderate
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Where it naturally appears
- Ethics/values
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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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.