Etymologically
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royalty

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 22 October 2026 at 21:30. This address is a permanent link to this version.
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Pronunciation

  • UK: /ˈɹɔɪəlti/[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Anglo-Norman roialté and roiauté (modern royauté),[2][3][4] an alteration, after the adjective roial (“royal”), of the older realté, which is recorded in Anglo-Norman from about 1136 in the sense "kingship, royal prerogative".[2][5] The adjective continues Latin rēgālis (“royal, kingly”);[6][3] Etymonline reconstructs a noun *rēgālitās behind the French word.[3] The ending is the suffix -ty, disguised by the loss of the Latin stem vowel.[3][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Magnificence, pomp: c. 1405, in Chaucer's Man of Law's Tale; this sense was obsolete by 1650.[2] The lasting sense, the position or office of a monarch and royal power, follows in a1425, in Langland's Piers Plowman.[2] Etymonline dates both to about 1400.[3]

Semantic evolution

From the office the word passed to the people who held it: royal persons are recorded from c. 1500 (the late 15th century in Etymonline), and royalty as a mass noun, royal persons collectively, from Shakespeare's Henry V.[2][3] Johnson (1755) gave only "kingship; character or office of a king" and related senses.[7] From the prerogatives of a sovereign the word came to mean, in the late 15th century, a right granted by a monarch to a person or a corporation, especially over minerals.[4][3][8] That sense developed into a payment made to the owner of a site by those who worked its minerals (1839 in Etymonline, the mid-19th century in the Shorter Oxford), and was then transferred to payments for the use of patents and to authors and composers for each copy sold or performance (1857).[3][4][8] In 19th-century America the word was also extended to the elite of any group (1835).[2]

Timeline

  • c. 1405 – magnificence, pomp (obsolete).[2]
  • a1425 – the position or power of a monarch.[2]
  • late 15th century – a right granted by a sovereign, especially over minerals.[4][3]
  • c. 1500 – a royal person.[2]
  • 1548 – kingly character or quality.[2]
  • a1616 – royal persons collectively, in Shakespeare.[2]
  • 1835 – the elite of a particular field.[2]
  • 1839 – a payment to a landowner for the use of a mine.[3]
  • 1857 – a payment to an author or composer.[3]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. Royal persons collectively; a member of a royal family: The crowd lined the street hoping to see royalty.
  2. The rank, status or power of a king or queen; sovereignty.
  3. Kingly character or dignity.
  4. A sum paid to an author, composer or other creator for each copy of a work sold or each performance, usually a share of the revenue.
  5. A payment to the owner of land or mineral rights by those who extract oil, gas or minerals from it, or a payment for the use of a patent.
  6. The most prominent members of a particular field: She was treated as country-music royalty.

Word family

  • nonroyalty
  • viceroyalty

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  4. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  5. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
  6. ^ Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  7. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  8. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press