different between king vs check

English

Alternative forms

• kyng, kynge (archaic)
• kinge (obsolete)

Pronunciation

• enPR: k?ng, IPA^(key): /k??/
• (US, pre-/?/ tensing), IPA^(key): /ki?/
• Rhymes: -??

Etymology 1

From Middle English king, kyng, from Old English cyng, cyning (“king”), from Proto-West Germanic *kuning, from Proto-Germanic *kuningaz, *kunungaz (“king”), equivalent to kin +? -ing. Doublet of cyning.

Cognate with Scots keeng (“king”), North Frisian köning (“king”), West Frisian kening (“king”), Dutch koning (“king”), Low German Koning, Köning (“king”), German König (“king”), Danish konge (“king”), Norwegian konge, Swedish konung, kung (“king”), Icelandic konungur, kóngur (“king”), Finnish kuningas (“king”), Russian ????? (knjaz?, “prince”), ???????? (knjagínja, “princess”). Eclipsed non-native Middle English roy (“king”) (Early Modern English roy), borrowed from Old French roi, rei, rai (“king”).

Noun

king (plural kings)

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.

2. A powerful or majorly influential person.

   • "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. […]"
3. (countable or uncountable) Something that has a preeminent position.
4. A component of certain games.
   1. (chess) 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. (card games) A playing card with the letter "K" and the image of a king on it, the thirteenth card in a given suit.
   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. (Britain, slang) A king skin.

6. A male dragonfly; a drake.
7. A king-sized bed.
   • 2002, Scott W. Donkin, Gerard Meyer, Peak Performance: Body and Mind (page 119)

     Try asking for a king-size bed next time because kings are usually firmer.

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

Synonyms

• Rex (the reigning king, formal), roy (obsolete, formal)

Coordinate terms

• (monarch): caesar, emperor, empress, kaiser, maharajah, prince, princess, queen, regent, royalty, shah, tsar, viceroy
• (playing card): ace, jack, joker, queen

Derived terms

Descendants

• Tok Pisin: king
• ? American Sign Language: K@Shoulder K@Abdomen
• ? Isubu: kinge
• ? Japanese: ??? (kingu)
• ? Maori: kingi

Translations

See king/translations § Noun.

See also

Verb

king (third-person singular simple present kings, present participle kinging, simple past and past participle kinged)

1. 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 […] .

   • 2008, William Shakespeare, A. R. Braunmuller (editor), Macbeth, Introduction, 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.
   • c. 1599, William Shakespeare, The Life of Henry the Fifth, 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, 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, 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, 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, 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, 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, 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.

Translations

Etymology 2

Noun

king (plural kings)

1. Alternative form of qing (Chinese musical instrument)

Anagrams

• gink

Estonian

Etymology

From Proto-Finnic *kenkä. Cognate with Finnish kenkä.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?kin??/

Noun

king (genitive kinga, partitive kinga)

1. shoe

Declension

Quotations

Kapampangan

Alternative forms

• keng
• qng, queng, quing (Spanish variant)

Preposition

king

1. indirect object marker; of, to, at, on, in, into, onto, among, around, for

Manx

Noun

king m

1. inflection of kione:
   1. genitive singular
   2. nominative plural

Mutation

Middle English

Alternative forms

• kenin, kening, kinig (in compounds, toponymic)
• gug, kug (in compounds, influenced by Old Norse (see etymology))
• knyng (transmission error)
• chinge, chin?, cing, cining, cin?, ging, keing, keng, kingk, kingue, kining, kink, kyng

Etymology

Inherited from the Old English cyning. The forms kug (attested in the compounds kugdom, kuglond, and kugriche) and gug (attested in the compound guglond) show the influence of the Old Norse konungr, whence they borrow their root vowel. The early forms featuring syncope (chinge, chin?, cing, and cin?) may have long ?.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kin?/, [ki??]

Noun

king (nominative plural kinges, also the early forms kingas or kingæs)

1. king

Derived terms

• Kinges (Bible)
• kinges of Coloin
• king of kinges
• Kingpleie

Descendants

• English: king (see there for further descendants)
• Scots: keeng, king

References

• “king (n.)” in the Middle English Dictionary (1954–2001)

Tok Pisin

Etymology

From English king.

Noun

king

1. king

English

Pronunciation

• enPR: ch?k, IPA^(key): /t???k/
• Rhymes: -?k
• Homophones: cheque, Czech

Etymology 1

From Middle English chek, chekke, borrowed from Old French eschek, eschec, eschac, from Medieval Latin scaccus, borrowed from Arabic ????? (š?h, “king or check at chess, shah”), borrowed from Persian ???? (šâh, “king”), from Middle Persian ????????????????? (mlk? /š?h/), from Old Persian ???? (XŠ /xš?ya?iya/, “king”), from Proto-Indo-Iranian *kšáyati (“he rules, he has power over”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *tek- (“to gain power over, gain control over”).

All English senses developed from the chess sense. Compare Saterland Frisian Schak, Schach, Dutch schaak, German Schach, Danish skak, Swedish schack, Icelandic skák, French échec, Italian scacco. See chess and shah (“king of Persia or Iran”).

Noun

check (plural checks)

1. (chess) A situation in which the king is directly threatened by an opposing piece. [from 14th c.]
2. An inspection or examination.

3. A control; a limit or stop.
4. (US) A mark (especially a checkmark: ?) used as an indicator.

   Synonyms: (UK) tick, checkmark

   • 1980, Stephen King, The Mist

     Norton had made a neat, lawyerly check beside each of the items he and Billy had picked up—half a dozen or so, including the milk and a six-pack of Coke.

5. (US) An order to a bank to pay money to a named person or entity.

   Synonym: (UK, Canada) cheque

6. (US) A bill, particularly in a restaurant.

   Synonyms: bill, (Canada) cheque

7. (contact sports) A maneuver performed by a player to take another player out of the play.

8. A token used instead of cash in gaming machines, or in gambling generally.
   • 1963, American law reports annotated: second series, volume 89

     […] the statute prohibits a machine which dispenses checks or tokens for replay […]

9. A lengthwise separation through the growth rings in wood.
10. A mark, certificate, or token by which errors may be prevented, or a thing or person may be identified.

11. (falconry) The forsaking by a hawk of its proper game to follow other birds. [from 15th c.]
12. A small chink or crack.

Hyponyms

Derived terms

Translations

References

• check on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Etymology 2

From Middle English chekken, partly from Old French eschequier and partly from the noun (see above).

Verb

check (third-person singular simple present checks, present participle checking, simple past and past participle checked)

1. To inspect; to examine.

2. To verify the accuracy of a text or translation, usually making some corrections (proofread) or many (copyedit).
3. (US, often used with "off") To mark items on a list (with a checkmark or by crossing them out) that have been chosen for keeping or removal or that have been dealt with (for example, completed or verified as correct or satisfactory).

   Synonyms: check off, (UK) tick, (UK) tick off, cross off, strike off

   Antonym: uncheck

4. To control, limit, or halt.

   Synonyms: curtail, restrain; see also Thesaurus:curb

   • c. 1775–1780, Edmund Burke, letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol

     so many clogs to check and retard the headlong course of violence and oppression

   • 1922, James Joyce, Ulysses Chapter 13

     She was about to retort but something checked the words on her tongue.

5. To verify or compare with a source of information.

6. To leave in safekeeping.

7. To leave with a shipping agent for shipping.

8. (street basketball) To pass or bounce the ball to an opponent from behind the three-point line and have the opponent pass or bounce it back to start play.

9. (sports) To disrupt another player with the stick or body to obtain possession of the ball or puck.

   Synonyms: tackle, trap, attack

10. (poker) To remain in a hand without betting. Only legal if no one has yet bet.

11. (chess) To make a move which puts an adversary's king in check; to put in check.
12. To chide, rebuke, or reprove.
13. (nautical) To slack or ease off, as a brace which is too stiffly extended.
14. To crack or gape open, as wood in drying; or to crack in small checks, as varnish, paint, etc.
15. To make checks or chinks in; to cause to crack.

16. To make a stop; to pause; with at.

    • The mind, once jaded by an attempt above its power, either is disabled for the future, or else checks at any vigorous undertaking ever after.

17. (obsolete) To clash or interfere.

    (Can we find and add a quotation of Francis Bacon to this entry?)

18. To act as a curb or restraint.
    • 1677, John Dryden, All for Love

      It [his presence] checks too strong upon me.

19. (falconry) To turn, when in pursuit of proper game, and fly after other birds.

Derived terms

• See below

Descendants

• ? Gulf Arabic: ???? (??yy?k)
• ? Hijazi Arabic: ??????? (šayyak)
• ? Finnish: tsekata
• ? German: checken
• ? Portuguese: checar
• ? Russian: ??????? (?ékat?)
• ? Russian: ???????? (?éknut?)
• ? Russian: ?????????? (pro?ékat?)
• ? Spanish: chequear

Translations

Derived terms

Related terms

Etymology 3

By shortening from chequer, from Old French eschequier (“chessboard”), from Medieval Latin scaccarium, ultimately from the same Persian root as above.

Noun

check (plural checks)

1. (textiles, usually pluralized) A pattern made up of a grid of squares of alternating colors; a checkered pattern.
   • 1819, Charles Mowry, in the Downington Pennsylvania American Republican, quoted in Herbery Wisbey, Pioneer Prophetess: Jemima Wilkinson, the Publick Universal Friend:

     One of her female followers, had made a very elegant piece of check. The Friend, being at her house, on a visit, the lady shewed the check to her, and as evidence of devotion to her leader, proposed presenting her with a pattern off the piece for her own use.

2. Any fabric woven with such a pattern.

Translations

Verb

check (third-person singular simple present checks, present participle checking, simple past and past participle checked)

1. (transitive) To mark with a check pattern.

Adjective

check (not comparable)

1. (heraldry) Divided into small squares by transverse, perpendicular, and horizontal lines.

   Synonym: chequy

References

• Michael Quinion (2004) , “Cheque”, in Ballyhoo, Buckaroo, and Spuds: Ingenious Tales of Words and Their Origins, Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Books in association with Penguin Books, ?ISBN
• Douglas Harper (2001–2021) , “check”, in Online Etymology Dictionary

Chinese

Etymology

Borrowed from English check.

Pronunciation

Verb

check

1. (Cantonese) to check

Synonyms

• ????? (ji?nchá)

Danish

Etymology

From English cheque, check, from Old French eschek (“check (in chess)”), via Medieval Latin scaccus and Arabic ????? (š?h) from Persian ???? (šâh, “king”) (cf. also Danish skak).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [?????]

Noun

check c

1. cheque

Inflection

Dutch

Pronunciation

Verb

check

1. first-person singular present indicative of checken
2. imperative of checken

French

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /t??k/

Noun

check m (plural checks)

1. (slang) fist bump

Spanish

Noun

check m (plural checks)

1. check (mark)

Swedish

Etymology

From English check

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /??k?/
• Homophones: käck, tjeck

Noun

check c

1. cheque, check

Declension

References