different between despot vs sovereign

English

Etymology

From Middle French despote, from Old French despote, from Medieval Latin despota, from Ancient Greek ???????? (despót?s, “lord, master, owner”), from the Proto-Indo-European phrase *déms pótis (“master of the house”). Cognate with Sanskrit ?????? (dámpati).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?d?s.p?t/, /?d?z.p?t/
• (US) IPA^(key): /?d?s.p?t/

Noun

despot (plural despots)

1. A ruler with absolute power; a tyrant.
2. (historical) A title awarded to senior members of the imperial family in the late Byzantine Empire, and claimed by various independent or semi-autonomous rulers in the Balkans (12th to 15th centuries)

Derived terms

• despotate
• despotism

Translations

References

Anagrams

• T posed, T-posed, depots, dopest, dépôts, posted, ptosed, stoped

Danish

Etymology

From Ancient Greek ???????? (despót?s, “lord, master”).

Noun

despot c (singular definite despoten, plural indefinite despoter)

1. despot

Inflection

Synonyms

• tyran

Derived terms

• despoti n
• despotisk (adjective)
• despotisme c

Further reading

• “despot” in Den Danske Ordbog

Romanian

Etymology

From Greek ???????? (despótis)

Noun

despot m (plural despo?i)

1. despot

Declension

Serbo-Croatian

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /d?spot/
• Hyphenation: des?pot

Noun

dèspot m (Cyrillic spelling ??????)

1. despot

Declension

Swedish

Noun

despot c

1. despot

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