King

Pronunciation

• enPR: kÄ­ng, IPA: /kɪŋ/
• US enPR: kÄ“ng, IPA: /kiːŋ/
• Rhymes: -ɪŋ

From Middle English king, kyng, from Old English cyng, cyning ("king"), from Proto-Germanic *kuningaz, *kunungaz ("king"), equivalent to kin + -ing. Cognate with Scots king ("king"), North Frisian köning ("king"), West Frisian kening ("king"), Dutch koning ("king"), Low German Koning, Köning ("king"), German König ("king"), Danish konge ("king"), Swedish konung, kung ("king"), Icelandic konungur, kóngur ("king").

Alternative forms

• kyng archaic, kynge archaic

Full definition of king

Noun

1. A male monarch; a man who heads a monarchy. If it's an absolute monarchy, then he is the supreme ruler of his nation.Henry VIII was the king of England from 1509 to 1547.
2. A powerful or influential person.Howard Stern styled himself as the "king of all media".
• 1907, w, The Younger Set Chapter 1/2, “… 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. Do you like the house ?”
3. Something that has a preeminent position.In times of financial panic, cash is king.
• 2012, June 3, Nathan Rabin, TV: Review: THE SIMPSONS (CLASSIC): “Mr. Plow” (season 4, episode 9; originally aired 11/19/1992), 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.
4. A component of certain games.
1. 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.
2. A playing card with the image of a king on it.
3. 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.
5. (UK, slang) A king skin.Oi mate, have you got kings?
6. A male dragonfly; a drake.

Coordinate terms

• (monarch) emperor, empress, maharajah, prince, princess, queen, regent, royalty, viceroy
• (playing card) ace, jack, joker, queen

Derived terms

Verb

1. To crown king, to make (a person) king.
• 1982, South Atlantic Modern Language Association, South Atlantic Review, Volume 47, %22kinging%22+-intitle:pareidolia&dq=%22kinged%22|%22kinging%22+-intitle:pareidolia&hl=en&ei=42MYTpSCKa7smAW4q9kR&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=10&ved=0CFUQ6AEwCTg8 page 16,The kinging of Macbeth is the business of the first part of the play ....
• 2008, William Shakespeare, A. R. Braunmuller (editor), Macbeth, Introduction, %22kinging%22+-intitle:pareidolia&hl=en&ei=oHsYTtOzFqyemQXKpqgC&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CC8Q6AEwAjjIAQ#v=onepage&q=%22kinged%22|%22kinging%22%20-intitle%3Apareidolia&f=false page 24,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.
2. To rule over as king.
• circa 1599 William Shakespeare, , Act 2, Scene 4,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.
3. To perform the duties of a king.
• 1918, Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen, The Railroad Trainman, Volume 35, %22kinging%22+-intitle:pareidolia&dq=%22kinged%22|%22kinging%22+-intitle:pareidolia&hl=en&ei=a2sYTr7mGfDRmAWpn5kn&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7&ved=0CEIQ6AEwBjha page 675,He had to do all his kinging after supper, which left him no time for roystering with the nobility and certain others.
• 2001, Chip R. Bell, Managers as Mentors: Building Partnerships for Learning, %22kinging%22+-intitle:pareidolia&hl=en&ei=oHsYTtOzFqyemQXKpqgC&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=9&ved=0CE0Q6AEwCDjIAQ#v=onepage&q=%22kinged%22|%22kinging%22%20-intitle%3Apareidolia&f=false page 6,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.
4. To assume or pretend preeminence (over); to lord it over.
• 1917, Edna Ferber, Fanny Herself, %22kinging%22+-intitle:pareidolia&hl=en&ei=54gYTtP2K8b-mAWP6vwg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CC0Q6AEwATjcAQ#v=onepage&q=%22kinged%22|%22kinging%22%20-intitle%3Apareidolia&f=false page 32,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.
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.
• 1957, Bertram Vivian Bowden (editor), Faster Than Thought: A Symposium on Digital Computing Machines, %22kinging%22+-intitle:pareidolia&dq=%22kinged%22|%22kinging%22+-intitle:pareidolia&hl=en&ei=l2YYTv67Ga_3mAXHu4T7Dw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CDYQ6AEwBDhG page 302,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.
• 1986, Rick DeMarinis, The Burning Women of Far Cry, %22kinging%22+-intitle:pareidolia&dq=%22kinged%22|%22kinging%22+-intitle:pareidolia&hl=en&ei=BncYTqSEEczzmAXU6dykDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CDsQ6AEwBTiWAQ page 100,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....
6. To dress and perform as a drag king.
• 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, %22kinging%22+-intitle:pareidolia&hl=en&ei=kVoYTpXkNofMmAXHjoS1CA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CC8Q6AEwAjgU#v=onepage&q=%22kinged%22|%22kinging%22%20-intitle%3Apareidolia&f=false page 266,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.

Noun

1. Alternative form of qing (Chinese musical instrument)

Anagrams

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