govern

Other forms of govern

past tense

governed·

present participle

governing·

third person

governs·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about govern

What does govern mean?

govern means "bring into conformity with rules or principles or usage; impose regulations". That is the primary sense; the word has 4 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in govern?

govern has 2 syllables: gov-ern. The stress falls on "gov". In IPA it is /ˈɡʌvɚn/.

What is another word for govern?

Close synonyms include regulate, regularize, regularise, order, rule. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is govern a common word?

govern is banded "Familiar" — widely understood, used when the subject calls for it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.