Etymologically
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kingdom

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Pronunciation

  • IPA: /ˈkɪŋ.dəm/[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English kingdom,[2][3] inherited from Old English cyningdōm (“kingship”),[4][5] from cyning “king” and -dōm, the suffix -dom.[4][2][3] It is cognate with Old Saxon kuningdōm, Middle Dutch koninghdom and Old Norse konungdómr.[4][6] The usual Old English word was cynedōm, and Middle English also had kingrick, whose second element is that of German Reich.[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Kingly authority, sovereignty: before 1000 in the OED,[7] a sense obsolete since the late 17th century.[6]

Semantic evolution

A monarchical state is from before 1300,[7] and the territory subject to a king from about 1250.[7] The spiritual sovereignty of God or Christ, and its realm, are from before 1300,[7] and kingdom come, “the next world”, originally slang from 1785, is from the Lord's Prayer, where thy kingdom come is an archaic subjunctive.[4] A realm or sphere in which something prevails is from 1362.[7] One of the realms of nature, animal, vegetable and mineral, is from the 1690s.[4] The Kingdom has been a familiar name for Fife since 1710.[7]

Timeline

  • a. 1000 – kingship.[7]
  • c. 1250 – a king's territory.[7]
  • a. 1300 – a monarchy, and God's kingdom.[7]
  • 1362 – a realm or sphere.[7]
  • 1690s – a realm of nature.[4]
  • 1785 – kingdom come.[4]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. A country or territory ruled by a king or queen.
  2. The eternal spiritual sovereignty of God or Christ, or its realm.
  3. A realm or sphere in which one thing is dominant: the kingdom of the imagination.
  4. In biology, one of the main divisions into which living things are classified, such as the animal and plant kingdoms.

Word family

  • subkingdom
  • underkingdom
  • hermit kingdom
  • kingdom come
  • United Kingdom

References

  1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  2. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (2000), 4th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
  3. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  5. ^ Soanes, Catherine; Stevenson, Angus, eds. (2004), Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  6. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press