king meaning: definition, etymology and quotations

king

verbalso spelled King

UK /ˈkɪŋɡ/ · /ˈkɪŋ/

Etymology

From Middle English king, kyng, kynge, from Old English cening, cing, cining, cuning, cyncg, cyneg, cyng, cyngc, cynig, cyning, king, kining, kuning, kyning, kyningc (“king”), from Proto-West Germanic *kuning, from Proto-Germanic *kuningaz, *kunungaz (“king”), from *kunją (“clan, family, kin”), from Proto-Indo-European *ǵenh₁- (“to produce; to beget”). Equivalent to kin + -ing. Doublet of cyning and knez. Cognates Cognate with Yola king, kinge (“king”), North Frisian kining, köning (“king”), Saterland Frisian Kening, König, Köänig (“king”), West Frisian kening (“king”), Alemannic German Chüng, Künig (“king”), Bavarian Kini (“king”), Central Franconian Künning (“king”), Cimbrian khuuneg (“king”), Dutch koning (“king”), German König (“king”), Luxembourgish Kinnek (“king”), Vilamovian kyng (“king”), Yiddish קעניג (kenig), קיניג (kinig, “king”), Danish kong, konge, konning (“king”), Elfdalian kunungg (“king”), Faroese kongur (“king”), Icelandic kóngur, konungur (“king”), Norwegian Bokmål konge (“king”), Norwegian Nynorsk konge (“king”), Scanian káng (“king”), Swedish konung, kung (“king”), Latgalian and Latvian kungs (“gentlemen”), Lithuanian kunigas (“priest”), Belarusian, Russian, and Ukrainian князь (knjazʹ, “prince; duke”), Bulgarian кнез (knez), княз (knjaz, “prince”), Czech kněz (“priest”), kníže (“prince”), Macedonian кнез (knez, “prince”), Polish ksiądz, xiądz (“priest; prince”), Serbo-Croatian кне̑з, knȇz (“prince”), Slovak kňaz (“priest”), knieža (“prince”), Slovene knez (“prince”), Estonian and Finnish kuningas (“king”), Ingrian kunigas, kunikas, kuningas (“king”), Veps kunigaz (“king”), Votic kunikõz (“king”), Võro kuning (“king”), Inari Sami kunâgâs (“king”), Kildin Sami коа̄нгэсс (kåångess), ко̄нгэс (kōnges, “bridegroom; king”), Lule Sami and Pite Sami gånågis (“king”), Northern Sami gonagas (“king”), Skolt Sami koonǥõs (“king”), Ter Sami конагас (konâgas, “king”); also Breton genel (“to bear”), Irish and Scottish Gaelic gin (“birth; fetus; offspring”), Welsh geni (“to be born”), Latin genō (“to bear, beget; to produce, yield”), Greek γενεά (geneá), γενιά (geniá, “ancestry, kin; generation”), Albanian dhen, dhën (“caprids, small livestock”), Lithuanian žentas (“son-in-law”), Belarusian зяць (zjacʹ, “brother-in-law; son-in-law”), Bulgarian and Macedonian зет (zet, “brother-in-law; son-in-law”), Czech zeť (“son-in-law”), Polish zięć (“son-on-law”), Russian зять (zjatʹ, “brother-in-law; son-in-law”), Serbo-Croatian зе̏т, zȅt (“brother-in-law; son-in-law”), Slovak zať (“son-in-law”), Slovene zet (“son-in-law”), Ukrainian зєть (zjetʹ), зять (zjatʹ, “brother-in-law; son-in-law”), Armenian ծնել (cnel, “to bear”), Avestan 𐬰𐬄𐬚𐬀𐬭 (ząθar, “father, progenitor; Creator”), Pashto زېږېدل (zeǵedël, “to be born”), Persian زادن (zādan / zâdan), زاییدن (zāyīdan / zâyidan, “to give birth”), Sanskrit जनति (janati, “to beget, create, produce; to assign, procure”). Eclipsed non-native Middle English roy (“king”) (Early Modern English roy), borrowed from Old French rei, roi, roy (“king”). The verb is inherited from Middle English kingen, kyngen (“to perform the duties of a king”), itself from the noun.

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 […] .
One narrative is the kinging and unkinging of Macbeth; the other narrative is the attack on Banquo's line and that line's eventual accession and supposed Jacobean survival through Malcolm's successful counter-attack on Macbeth.2008, William Shakespeare, edited by A. R. Braunmuller, Macbeth, Introduction, page 24:

To rule over as king.

And let us do it with no show of fear; / No, with no more than if we heard that England / Were busied with a Whitsun morris-dance; / For, my good liege, she is so idly king’d, / Her sceptre so fantastically borne / By a vain, giddy, shallow, humorous youth, / That fear attends her not.1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life of Henry the Fift”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene iv]:

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.
Second, Mentor (the old man) combined the wisdom of experience with the sensitivity of a fawn in his attempts to convey kinging skills to young Telemachus.2001, Chip R. Bell, Managers as Mentors: Building Partnerships for Learning, page 6:

To assume or pretend preeminence (over); to lord it over.

The seating arrangement of the temple was the Almanach de Gotha of Congregation Emanu-el. Old Ben Reitman, patriarch among the Jewish settlers of Winnebago, who had come over an immigrant youth, and who now owned hundreds of rich farm acres, besides houses, mills and banks, kinged it from the front seat of the center section.1917, Edna Ferber, Fanny Herself, page 32:

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.

If the machine does this, it will lose only one point, and as it is not looking far enough ahead, it cannot see that it has not prevented its opponent from kinging but only postponed the evil day.1957, Bertram Vivian Bowden, editor, Faster Than Thought: A Symposium on Digital Computing Machines, page 302:
I was about to make a move that would corner a piece that she was trying to get kinged, but I slid my checker back[…].1986, Rick DeMarinis, The Burning Women of Far Cry, page 100:

To dress and perform as a drag king.

Through the ex-centric diaspora, kinging in postcolonial Australia has become a site of critical hybridity where diasporic female masculinities have emerged through the contestations of "home" and "host" cultures.2008, Audrey Yue, “King Victoria: Asian Drag Kings, Postcolonial Female Masculinity, and Hybrid Sexuality in Australia”, in Fran Martin, Peter Jackson, Audrey Yue, Mark McLelland, editors, AsiaPacifQueer: Rethinking Genders and Sexualities, page 266:

King

noun

/kɪŋ/

radiotelephony clear-code word for the letter K.

World War II era; joint US/RAF; World War II era; joint US/RAF

The title of a king.

As we climbed the Marykirk Bank Ogilvie spoke of the passes leading over to Deeside, and of the Royal deer forests around Balmoral; then, with mingled pride and modesty, he added, "I've driven the King seven times."1947 January and February, O. S. Nock, “"The Aberdonian" in Wartime”, in Railway Magazine, page 8:
One, a grant by Archbishop Wulfred to that community, is datable to 825x32; while the other two (both copies of the same document) record an agreement between Archbishop Ceolnoth and Kings Egbert and Æthelwulf which was enacted in 838.2001, Richard Gameson, editor, The Codex Aureus: An Eighth-Century Gospel Book, Rosenkilde and Bagger, →ISBN, page 76:

Derived terms: Alaskan King, God Save the King, Good King Henry, Homecoming King, King Arthur, King Billy, King Charles Land, King Charles's head, King Charles spaniel, King Cotton, King County, King David's harp, King George whiting, King James Bible, King James Version, King Kong, King Mob, King of Kings, King's Counsel, Kings Creek, King's English, King Shit of Turd Island, King's speech

king

noun

Etymology

13 senses

1A male monarch; a man who heads a monarchy; in an…
2The monarch with the most power and authority in a…
3A male leader of a traditional Aboriginal group, often…
4A powerful or majorly influential person; someone who…
5Something that has a preeminent position.
6The principal chess piece, that players seek to threaten…
7A playing card with the letter "K" and the image of a…
8A checker (a piece of checkers/draughts) that reached…
9The central pin or skittle in bowling games.
10A king skin.
11A male dragonfly; a drake.
12A king-sized bed.
13A vertex in a directed graph which can reach every other…

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

Henry VIII was the king of England from 1509 to 1547.
Charles the third became the new king of England from 2022.

The monarch with the most power and authority in a monarchy, regardless of sex.

The British Parliament has had made it for it in the past the claim that it could do anything excepting convert a woman into a man.[…]And the high court [of Amsterdam] has done it by deciding that all officials and public servants shall take their oath of allegiance not to Queen Wilhelmina but to King Wilhelmina.1891 January 3, ““King” Wilhelmina”, in The Chicago Daily Tribune, volume LI, number III, Chicago, Ill., page 5, column 7:
Hatshepsut was ruling as a king, not queen and she needed to be recognised as such.2009, Charlotte Booth, “Hatshepsut”, in The Curse of the Mummy and Other Mysteries of Ancient Egypt, Oneworld Publications, →ISBN, page 93:

1 more example

The act of perforating one’s ears could be read as a gendering performance—a modification from an overt masculinity (king) to a tempered female masculinity (king with female traits)—in which the male king was expected to adopt the quintessence of Omeppa’s female king wife, Ebulejonu, and by so doing, embody the true essence of womanhood.[…]Attah-Ebulejonu, like Hatshepsut of Egypt before her, ruled as (and was remembered as) a king, not queen, perhaps setting the precedent for the coronation of another female king, Ahebi Ugbabe, about four centuries later.[…]This time, the female king would not rule in the Igala kingdom nor would she be of Igala origin. Instead, the king would be an Igbo woman who had lived in Igalaland for many years, who had come of age and matured there and in the process had imbibed the cultural values and mores of the people with whom she had lived in exile.2011, Nwando Achebe, “Mgbapu Ahebi: Exile in Igalaland, ca. 1895–1916”, in The Female King of Colonial Nigeria: Ahebi Ugbabe, Bloomington, Ind.; Indianapolis, Ind.: Indiana University Press, →ISBN, pages 63–64:

Australia, Historical A male leader of a traditional Aboriginal group, often used as a title by colonists.

Old Culwaddy the ‘king’, squatting by the galley fire, looked up questioningly[.]1937, Ion L. Idriess, Over the Range, Sydney: Angus and Robertson, published 1947, page 56:

Figuratively A powerful or majorly influential person; someone who holds the preeminent position.

Howard Stern styled himself as the "king of all media".
"I wish we were back in Tenth Street. But so many children came[…]and the Tenth Street house wasn't half big enough; and a dreadful speculative builder built this house and persuaded Austin to buy it. Oh, dear, and here we are among the rich and great; and the steel kings and copper kings and oil kings and their heirs and dauphins.[…]"1907 August, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, chapter I, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC:

2 more examples

I'd been the dodgem car king at the Brisbane Ekka in 1975 and all those skills can flooding back[.]1995, Paul Vautin, Turn It Up!, Sydney: Pan Macmillan Australia, page 154:
The truth is that [Isaac] Newton was very much a product of his time. The colossus of science was not the first king of reason, Keynes wrote after reading Newton’s unpublished manuscripts. Instead “he was the last of the magicians”.2014 June 21, “Magician’s brain”, in The Economist, volume 411, number 8892, archived from the original on 09 Jan 2025:

Figuratively Something that has a preeminent position.

In times of financial panic, cash is king.
It would be difficult, for example, to imagine a bigger, more obvious subject for comedy than the laughable self-delusion of washed-up celebrities, especially if the washed-up celebrity in question is Adam West, a camp icon who can go toe to toe with William Shatner as the king of winking self-parody.2012 June 3, Nathan Rabin, “TV: Review: THE SIMPSONS (CLASSIC): “Mr. Plow” (season 4, episode 9; originally aired 11/19/1992)”, in The Onion A.V. Club, archived from the original on 01 Feb 2013:

› A component of certain games.

Board games, Chess, Games 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.

The objective of each player is to place the opponent’s king ‘under attack’ in such a way that the opponent has no legal move. […] If the arbiter observes both kings are in check, or a pawn stands on the rank furthest from its starting position, he/she shall wait until the next move is completed.2022, “2023 Laws of Chess”, in FIDE, pages 2, 20:

Card games, Games A playing card with the letter "K" and the image of a king on it, the thirteenth card in a given suit.

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.

The central pin or skittle in bowling games.

In knockemdowns and bowls ten pins are used, the centre one being called the king, and the ball has to be grounded before it reaches the frame.1878, John Henry Walsh, British Rural Sports, page 712:

UK, Slang A king skin.

Oi mate, have you got kings?

A male dragonfly; a drake.

A king-sized bed.

Try asking for a king-size bed next time because kings are usually firmer.2002, Scott W. Donkin, Gerard Meyer, Peak Performance: Body and Mind, page 119:

Graph theory, Mathematics, Sciences A vertex in a directed graph which can reach every other vertex via a path with a length of at most 2.

Synonyms: Rex, roy
Derived terms: 242 terms
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Related terms: ♔, ♚
Coordinate terms: caesar, emperor, empress, kaiser, maharajah, prince, princess, queen, regent, royalty, shah, tsar, viceroy, ace, jack, joker

Entry derived from the Wiktionary, under licence CC BY-SA 4.0 — authors: page histories for king and King.