Other forms: kings
A king is the man who rules a country because his family ruled it before him — crown, throne, the whole inherited business. A king on a coin, a king signing a treaty, a king waving from a balcony while the crowd holds up phones.
The word travels a long way past palaces. In chess the king is the piece the entire game protects: it shuffles one square at a time, and when it cannot escape, the game is over. In a pack of cards the king sits above the queen and below the ace. Call someone the king of late-night television and you mean nobody does it better. One trap: a king's wife is a queen, but a queen's husband is not a king — he is a prince consort. And king-size, in beds and chocolate bars, means the biggest one they sell.
1nounkingThe male ruler of a country, who inherits the position from his family.~94%
“The king opened parliament in a gold coach.”
2nounpieceIn chess, the piece each player must protect; the game ends when it cannot escape capture.~2%
“He tucked his king behind a wall of pawns.”
3nouncardA playing card showing a king, ranking above the queen.~2%
“She turned over the king of hearts and smiled.”
4nounbestThe person who is best or most powerful in some field.~2%
“For thirty years he was the king of Saturday night radio.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 10 sentences found in the wild and placed 10 of them on a sense — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
King runs back through Middle English king to Old English cyning, and behind that Proto-Germanic *kuningaz, built on *kunją, 'clan, family, kin'. A king was the man of the kin — kin with an ending on it, the one the family put forward. The root goes down to Proto-Indo-European *ǵenh₁-, 'to produce, to beget', which is why kin and king are the same idea wearing different clothes.
Middle English
king
English, today
king
Built from
From Middle English king. From Middle English king, kyng, kynge, from Old English cening, cing, cining, cuning, cyncg, cyneg, cyng, cyngc, cynig, cyning, king, kining, kuning, kyning, kyningc (“king”), from Proto-West Germanic kuning, from Proto-Germanic kuningaz, kunungaz (“king”), from kunją (“clan, family, kin”), from Proto-Indo-European ǵenh₁- (“to produce; to beget”). Equivalent to kin + ing. a doublet of cyning and knez. 2
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA