Other forms: royalties
Royalty is members of a royal family, or money paid to an author. Treated like royalty, royalty payments, collect the royalties.
The money sense comes from rights that once belonged to the crown and were licensed out, which is how a payment for use got a royal name. An author's royalty is a percentage of each copy sold rather than a fee.
1nounroyaltyMembers of a royal family, or money paid to an author.
“Over the years, the hotel has welcomed royalty and film stars.”
royalty is a payment.
Old French roialte comes from roial, royal, from Latin regalis, from rex, a king.
Proto-Indo-European
*h₃reǵ-
Latin
rēgālis
Vulgar Latin
*rēgālitās
Old French
roialté
Middle English
royaltee
English, today
royalty
From Middle English royaltee, roialtee, royalte, from Old French roialté, roiauté, realté (compare earlier Old French realted (“realm, kingdom”)), from Vulgar Latin rēgālitās, from Latin rēgālis, equivalent to royal + -ty. a doublet of regality.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA