Adjective: sovereign
Comparison Forms
Synthetic
Perifrastic
| Comparative | more sovereign |
| Superlative | most sovereign |
Sample Sentences
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sovereign nation
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Native American nations have often been described as sovereign nations, although as regards present-day diplomacy they are, more precisely speaking, autonomous.
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Near-synonym: supreme
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sovereign country
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Gentlemen, may I introduce Her Royal Highness, the Sovereign and Most Imperial Majesty, Empress Elizabeth of Vicron.
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You're the keeper of the castle
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So be a father to your children
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The provider of all their daily needs
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Like a sovereign Lord protector
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Be their destiny's director
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And they'll do well to follow where you lead. [1972, Brian Potter, Dennis Lambert, “Keeper of the Castle”, performed by The Four Tops:]
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Her voice was her sovereign talent.
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The ſoueraigne weede betwixt two marbles plaine
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She pownded ſmall, and did in peeces bruze,
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And then atweene her lilly handes twaine,
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Into his wound the iuyce thereof did ſcruze […] [1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto V”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:]
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[…] God save the mark!—
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And telling me the sovereign’st thing on earth
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Was parmaceti for an inward bruise; [c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Fourth, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene iii]:]
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Homer of Moly and Nepenthe singes:
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Moly, the gods most soveraigne hearbe divine.
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Nepenth Hellen's drink, which gladnes brings,—
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Hart's greife repells, and doth yᵉ witts refine. [1876, John Davies, “[Tobacco.]”, in Alexander B[alloch] Grosart, editor, The Complete Poems of Sir John Davies. Edited, with Memorial-Introduction and Notes, by the Rev. Alexander B. Grosart. In Two Volumes (Early English Poets), volume II, London: Chatto and Windus, Piccadilly, →OCLC, page 226:]
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a sovereign remedy [1681, John Dryden, The Spanish Fryar: Or, the Double Discovery. […], London: […] Richard Tonson and Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC, (please specify the page number):]
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Such a sovereign influence has this passion upon the regulation of the lives and actions of men. [1692–1717, Robert South, Twelve Sermons Preached upon Several Occasions, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI), London:]
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In Spain people still bathe in the sea or roll naked in the dew of the meadows on St. John’s Eve, believing that this is a sovereign preservative against diseases of the skin. [1900, James George Frazer, The Golden Bough, volume 3, page 297:]
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You pity not the state, nor the remembrance of his most sovereign name. [c. 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Winters Tale”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene i]:]
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We acknowledge him [God] our sovereign good. [[1594], Richard Hooker, edited by J[ohn] S[penser], Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie, […], London: […] Iohn Windet, […], →OCLC, (please specify the page):]
Adjectives inflected like sovereign
priest-ridden,
unreposed,
evadible,
dissentious,
dissentient,
unforesighted,
egocentrical,
unephemeral,
unennobling,
mensuralist,
flocculent,
unseductive,
whoopsy,
whooshy,
surrogate,
Nicodian,
unrepaired,
prismatoidal,
renorenal,
unseducible, etc. (List truncated at 20 adjectives)
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: French Adjectives '
souverain', Italian Adjectives '
sovrano', Spanish Adjectives '
soberano'.
Verbs referencing "sovereign"
Swedish Adjectives
suverän.