sovereign

1. 1.

   a nation's ruler or head of state usually by hereditary right

   Synonymscrowned headmonarch

   Broaderrulerhead of state

   NarrowerCapetianCarolingianczaremperorkingMerovingianShah

Other forms of sovereign

plural

sovereigns·

comparative

sovereigner·

superlative

sovereignest·

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 sovereign

What does sovereign mean?

sovereign means "(of political bodies) not controlled by outside forces". That is the primary sense; the word has 3 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in sovereign?

sovereign has 2 syllables: sove-reign. The stress falls on "sove". In IPA it is /ˈsɑvɹən/.

What is another word for sovereign?

Close synonyms include autonomous, independent, self-governing, supreme, crowned head. 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 sovereign a common word?

sovereign 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.