Noun: sovereign
| Singular | sovereign |
| Plural | sovereigns |
Sample Sentences
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The petty ſtreames that paie a dailie det
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To their ſalt ſoveraigne with their freſh fals haſt,
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Adde to his flowe, but alter not his taſt. [1594, William Shakespeare, Lucrece (First Quarto), London: […] Richard Field, for Iohn Harrison, […], →OCLC:]
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Is this the Region, this the Soil, the Clime,
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Said then the lost Archangel, this the seat
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That we must change for Heaven?, this mournful gloom
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For that celestial light? Be it so, since hee
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Who now is Sovran can dispose and bid
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What shall be right : fardest from him is best
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Whom reason hath equald, force hath made supream
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Above his equals. […] [1667, John Milton, “Book I”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC, lines 242-249:]
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No question is to be made but that the bed of the Missisippi^([sic]) belongs to the sovereign, that is, to the nation. [1785, Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia:]
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A loose network of perhaps tens of thousands of far-right antigovernment extremists, sovereigns share certain conspiratorial beliefs and, sometimes, a desire to profit off a government whose legitimacy they deny. [2019 March 29, Ashley Powers, “How Sovereign Citizens Helped Swindle $1 Billion From the Government They Disavow”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:]
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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’. [2004, December 11, "Birkenhead, Merseyside" BBC Voices recording (0:06:52)]
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No visible tattoos, sovereigns, mismatched jewellery, scrunchies, large clips or hoop earrings. [2011 July 1, Caroline Davies, “Harrods 'ladies' code' drives out sales assistant”, in The Guardian:]
Nouns inflected like sovereign
soldier's woundwort,
Nicosian,
whopper,
greypate,
tactile sign language,
chronotrope,
Rosie Lee,
dissentient,
photoinactivator,
sulphonediimine,
coastal waterfall,
residuary devise,
bituminization,
nitrosonaphthol,
smṛiti,
geosphere,
backscreen,
mensuralist,
flocculate,
flocculant, etc. (List truncated at 20 nouns)
Etymology
From Middle English sovereyn, from Old French soverain (whence also modern French souverain), from Vulgar Latin *superānus (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. Doublet of souverain. See also suzerain, foreign. See: Middle English Nouns '
sovereyn', French Nouns '
souverain', Italian Nouns '
sovrano', Spanish Nouns '
soberano', Latin Nouns '
super'.
Verbs referencing "sovereign"
English Nouns
suzerain, Swedish Nouns
suverän.