king

name

1. An English and Scottish surname transferred from the nickname, originally a nickname for someone who either acted as if he were a king or had worked in the king's household.

   “The Russians clinched the victory when Vera Zvonareva rallied to defeat Vania King, 4-6, 6-3, 6-2, in the first reverse singles match, giving her team a 3-0 lead. […] After Russia went ahead, 3-0, Ahsha Rolle defeated Elena Vesnina, 6-3, 6-4, then King paired with Liezel Huber to beat Vesnina and Svetlana Kuznetsova, 7-6 (3), 6-4, in the doubles.”

   “So when King – who had been in Atlanta for “Bloody Sunday” – telegrammed Parks about returning to Alabama to take part in a third mass march from Selma to Montgomery, her immediate answer was “Why, of course.””

2. King class, a class of steam locomotives once used on the GWR which were all named after kings.
3. A number of places in the United States:
4. A number of places in the United States:
5. A number of places in the United States:
6. A number of places in the United States:
7. A number of places in the United States:
8. A number of places in the United States:
9. A number of places in the United States:
10. A township in the Regional Municipality of York, Ontario, Canada.
11. A village on New Ireland, Papua New Guinea.

noun

1. radiotelephony clear-code word for the letter K.
2. The title of a king.

   “As we climbed the Marykirk Bank Ogilvie spoke of the passes leading over to Deeside, and of the Royal deer forests around Balmoral; then, with mingled pride and modesty, he added, "I've driven the King seven times."”

   “One, a grant by Archbishop Wulfred to that community, is datable to 825x32; while the other two (both copies of the same document) record an agreement between Archbishop Ceolnoth and Kings Egbert and Æthelwulf which was enacted in 838.”

verb

Etymology: From Middle English king, kyng, kynge, from Old English cening, cing, cining, cuning, cyncg, cyneg, cyng, cyngc, cynig, cyning, king, kining, kuning, kyning, kyningc (“king”), from Proto-West Germanic *kuning, from Proto-Germanic *kuningaz, *kunungaz (“king”), from *kunją (“clan, family, kin”), from Proto-Indo-European *ǵenh₁- (“to produce; to beget”). Equivalent to kin + -ing. Doublet of cyning and knez. Cognates Cognate with Yola king, kinge (“king”), North Frisian kining, köning (“king”), Saterland Frisian Kening, König, Köänig (“king”), West Frisian kening (“king”), Alemannic German Chüng, Künig (“king”), Bavarian Kini (“king”), Central Franconian Künning (“king”), Cimbrian khuuneg (“king”), Dutch koning (“king”), German König (“king”), Luxembourgish Kinnek (“king”), Vilamovian kyng (“king”), Yiddish קעניג (kenig), קיניג (kinig, “king”), Danish kong, konge, konning (“king”), Elfdalian kunungg (“king”), Faroese kongur (“king”), Icelandic kóngur, konungur (“king”), Norwegian Bokmål konge (“king”), Norwegian Nynorsk konge (“king”), Scanian káng (“king”), Swedish konung, kung (“king”), Latgalian and Latvian kungs (“gentlemen”), Lithuanian kunigas (“priest”), Belarusian, Russian, and Ukrainian князь (knjazʹ, “prince; duke”), Bulgarian кнез (knez), княз (knjaz, “prince”), Czech kněz (“priest”), kníže (“prince”), Macedonian кнез (knez, “prince”), Polish ksiądz, xiądz (“priest; prince”), Serbo-Croatian кне̑з, knȇz (“prince”), Slovak kňaz (“priest”), knieža (“prince”), Slovene knez (“prince”), Estonian and Finnish kuningas (“king”), Ingrian kunigas, kunikas, kuningas (“king”), Veps kunigaz (“king”), Votic kunikõz (“king”), Võro kuning (“king”), Inari Sami kunâgâs (“king”), Kildin Sami коа̄нгэсс (kåångess), ко̄нгэс (kōnges, “bridegroom; king”), Lule Sami and Pite Sami gånågis (“king”), Northern Sami gonagas (“king”), Skolt Sami koonǥõs (“king”), Ter Sami конагас (konâgas, “king”); also Breton genel (“to bear”), Irish and Scottish Gaelic gin (“birth; fetus; offspring”), Welsh geni (“to be born”), Latin genō (“to bear, beget; to produce, yield”), Greek γενεά (geneá), γενιά (geniá, “ancestry, kin; generation”), Albanian dhen, dhën (“caprids, small livestock”), Lithuanian žentas (“son-in-law”), Belarusian зяць (zjacʹ, “brother-in-law; son-in-law”), Bulgarian and Macedonian зет (zet, “brother-in-law; son-in-law”), Czech zeť (“son-in-law”), Polish zięć (“son-on-law”), Russian зять (zjatʹ, “brother-in-law; son-in-law”), Serbo-Croatian зе̏т, zȅt (“brother-in-law; son-in-law”), Slovak zať (“son-in-law”), Slovene zet (“son-in-law”), Ukrainian зєть (zjetʹ), зять (zjatʹ, “brother-in-law; son-in-law”), Armenian ծնել (cnel, “to bear”), Avestan 𐬰𐬄𐬚𐬀𐬭 (ząθar, “father, progenitor; Creator”), Pashto زېږېدل (zeǵedël, “to be born”), Persian زادن (zādan / zâdan), زاییدن (zāyīdan / zâyidan, “to give birth”), Sanskrit जनति (janati, “to beget, create, produce; to assign, procure”). Eclipsed non-native Middle English roy (“king”) (Early Modern English roy), borrowed from Old French rei, roi, roy (“king”). The verb is inherited from Middle English kingen, kyngen (“to perform the duties of a king”), itself from the noun.

1. To crown king, to make (a person) king.

   “1982, South Atlantic Modern Language Association, South Atlantic Review, Volume 47, page 16, The kinging of Macbeth is the business of the first part of the play […] .”

   “One narrative is the kinging and unkinging of Macbeth; the other narrative is the attack on Banquo's line and that line's eventual accession and supposed Jacobean survival through Malcolm's successful counter-attack on Macbeth.”

2. To rule over as king.

   “And let us do it with no show of fear; / No, with no more than if we heard that England / Were busied with a Whitsun morris-dance; / For, my good liege, she is so idly king’d, / Her sceptre so fantastically borne / By a vain, giddy, shallow, humorous youth, / That fear attends her not.”

3. To perform the duties of a king.

   “1918, Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen, The Railroad Trainman, Volume 35, page 675, He had to do all his kinging after supper, which left him no time for roystering with the nobility and certain others.”

   “Second, Mentor (the old man) combined the wisdom of experience with the sensitivity of a fawn in his attempts to convey kinging skills to young Telemachus.”

4. To assume or pretend preeminence (over); to lord it over.

   “The seating arrangement of the temple was the Almanach de Gotha of Congregation Emanu-el. Old Ben Reitman, patriarch among the Jewish settlers of Winnebago, who had come over an immigrant youth, and who now owned hundreds of rich farm acres, besides houses, mills and banks, kinged it from the front seat of the center section.”

5. To promote a piece of draughts/checkers that has traversed the board to the opposite side, that piece subsequently being permitted to move backwards as well as forwards.

   “If the machine does this, it will lose only one point, and as it is not looking far enough ahead, it cannot see that it has not prevented its opponent from kinging but only postponed the evil day.”

   “I was about to make a move that would corner a piece that she was trying to get kinged, but I slid my checker back[…].”

6. To dress and perform as a drag king.

   “Through the ex-centric diaspora, kinging in postcolonial Australia has become a site of critical hybridity where diasporic female masculinities have emerged through the contestations of "home" and "host" cultures.”