different between captain vs sovereign

English

Etymology

From Middle English capitain, capteyn, from Old French capitaine, from Late Latin capit?neus, from Latin caput (“head”) (English cap). Doublet of chieftain, also from Old French.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?kæp.t?n/, /-t?n/
• (US, General Australian) IPA^(key): /?kæp.t?n/
• (naval, informal) IPA^(key): /?kæp.?n/, [?kæpn?], [?kæpm?]

Noun

captain (plural captains)

1. A chief or leader.
   • 1526, The Bible, tr. William Tyndale, Matthew 2:

     For out of the shal come a captaine, whych shall govern my people israhel.

   • 1929, Rudyard Kipling, "The English Way":

     Stand up-stand up, Northumberland! / I bid you answer true, / If England's King has under his hand / A Captain as good as you?

2. The person lawfully in command of a ship or other vessel.

3. An army officer with a rank between the most senior grade of lieutenant and major.

   • "A fine man, that Dunwody, yonder," commented the young captain, as they parted, and as he turned to his prisoner. "We'll see him on in Washington some day. He is strengthening his forces now against Mr. Benton out there. […]."

4. A naval officer with a rank between commander and commodore.
5. A commissioned officer in the United States Navy, Coast Guard, NOAA Corps, or PHS Corps of a grade superior to a commander and junior to a rear admiral (lower half). A captain is equal in grade or rank to an Army, Marine Corps, or Air Force colonel.
7. One of the athletes on a sports team who is designated to make decisions, and is allowed to speak for his team with a referee or official.
   • 2000, Gregory Allen Howard, Remember the Titans

     Captain's supposed to be the leader, right?
8. The leader of a group of workers.
9. The head boy of a school.
10. A maître d', a headwaiter.
    • 1977, Don Felder, Don Henley, and Glenn Frey, lyricists, "Hotel California",

      So I called up the Captain, "Please bring me my wine." / He said: "We haven't had that spirit here since 1969."

11. (Southern US) An honorific title given to a prominent person. See colonel.

Synonyms

• (leader of a group of workers): supervisor, straw boss, foreman
• (commander of a vessel): skipper, master
• (pilot in command): pilot, pilot in command
• (military rank): CAPT, CAPT., Capt., Capt, CPT (abbreviation)

Derived terms

Descendants

• Sranan Tongo: kapten
• ? Irish: captaen

Translations

Verb

captain (third-person singular simple present captains, present participle captaining, simple past and past participle captained)

1. (intransitive) To act as captain
2. (transitive) To exercise command of a ship, aircraft or sports team.

Related terms

Translations

Anagrams

• anti-cap, capitan, patican

English

Alternative forms

• soveraign, soveraigne (archaic)
• sovran (archaic)
• sovring (pronunciation spelling)

Etymology

From Middle English sovereyn, from Old French soverain (whence also modern French souverain), from Vulgar Latin *super?nus (compare Italian sovrano, Spanish soberano) from Latin super (“above”). Spelling influenced by folk-etymology association with reign. Doublet of soprano, from the same Latin root via Italian. See also suzerain, foreign.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?s?v.??n/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /?s?v(?)??n/
• Hyphenation: sov?e?reign

Adjective

sovereign (comparative more sovereign, superlative most sovereign)

1. Exercising power of rule.

2. Exceptional in quality.

3. (now rare, pharmacology) Extremely potent or effective (of a medicine, remedy etc.).
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, III.v:

     The soueraigne weede betwixt two marbles plaine / She pownded small, and did in peeces bruze, / And then atweene her lilly handes twaine, / Into his wound the iuyce thereof did scruze […]

   • a sovereign remedy

   • Such a sovereign influence has this passion upon the regulation of the lives and actions of men.

4. Having supreme, ultimate power.

   Gentlemen, may I introduce the Sovereign, Her Royal Highness, and Most Imperial Majesty, Empress Elizabeth of Vicron.
5. Princely; royal.
   • c1610, William Shakespeare, A Winters Tale, V.i:

     You pity not the state, nor the remembrance of his most sovereign name.

6. Predominant; greatest; utmost; paramount.
   • 1594, Richard Hooker, Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie

     We acknowledge him [God] our sovereign good.

Synonyms

• autonomous
• supreme

Derived terms

• sovereignly
• sovereign citizen
• sovereign state

Translations

Noun

sovereign (plural sovereigns)

1. A monarch; the ruler of a country.
   • 1785, Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia

     No question is to be made but that the bed of the Missisippi[sic] belongs to the sovereign, that is, to the nation.

2. One who is not a subject to a ruler or nation.
3. A gold coin of the United Kingdom, with a nominal value of one pound sterling but in practice used as a bullion coin.
4. A very large champagne bottle with the capacity of about 25 liters, equivalent to 33? standard bottles.
5. Any butterfly of the tribe Nymphalini, or genus Basilarchia, as the ursula and the viceroy.
6. (Britain, slang) A large, garish ring; a sovereign ring.
   • 2004, December 11, "Birkenhead, Merseyside" BBC Voices recording (0:06:52)

     No, someone who wears loads of sovereigns as well loads of gold and has uh a curly perm and peroxide blonde hair, orange, orange sunbed skin and a fringe like this blow-dried to death, that’s a ‘scally’.

Hyponyms

• (monarch): king, queen

Derived terms

• sovereignty

Descendants

• ? Irish: sabhran
• ? Russian: ??????? (soveren)
• ? Scottish Gaelic: sòbharan
• ? Welsh: sofren

Translations

See also

• half sovereign

Verb

sovereign (third-person singular simple present sovereigns, present participle sovereigning, simple past and past participle sovereigned)

1. (transitive) To rule over as a sovereign.

Anagrams

• Rovignese, virogenes