king
noun · verb
Simple meaning
A male ruler of a country, or a very important person
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
kingIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈkɪŋ
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
A male monarch; a man who heads a monarchy; in an absolute monarchy, the supreme ruler of his nation.
The monarch with the most power and authority in a monarchy, regardless of sex.
A powerful or majorly influential person; someone who holds the preeminent position.
countable or uncountable
Something that has a preeminent position.
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.
verb
To assume or pretend preeminence (over); to lord it over.
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.
To crown king, to make (a person) king.
To rule over as king.
To perform the duties of a king.
To dress and perform as a drag king.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- A1 · Beginner (estimated)
- Frequency
- Very Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A male monarch; a man who heads a monarchy; in an absolute monarchy, the supreme ruler of his nation.
Used this way, king 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
- Moderate
- 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 king
- “The lion is the king of beasts.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Word family
Words built from the same root.
A domain in which something is dominant.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
An English translation of the Bible published in 1611.
An English translation of the Bible published in 1611.
The hero of William Shakespeare's tragedy who was betrayed and mistreated by two of his scheming daughters.
Large mackerel with long pointed snout.
Hickory of the eastern United States resembling the shagbark but having a much larger nut.
Hickory of the eastern United States resembling the shagbark but having a much larger nut.
Related words
Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.
Counsel to the Crown when the British monarch is a king.
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
- monarchnoun
- thronenoun
- coronationnoun
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: male monarch
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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.