Word Direct Answers

What does "sovereign" mean?

Sovereign: Independent of, and unlimited by, any other; possessing, or entitled to, original authority or jurisdiction; as, a sovereign state; a sovereign discretion.

Additional senses

  1. 2.Princely; royal. "Most sovereign name." Shak. At Babylon was his sovereign see. Chaucer.
  2. 3.Predominant; greatest; utmost; paramount. We acknowledge him [God] our sovereign good. Hooker.
  3. 4.Efficacious in the highest degree; effectual; controlling; as, a sovereign remedy. Dryden. Such a sovereign influence has this passion upon the regulation of the lives and actions of men. South. Sovereign state, a state which administers its own government, and is not dependent upon, or subject to, another power.
  4. 5.The person, body, or state in which independent and supreme authority is vested; especially, in a monarchy, a king, queen, or emperor. No question is to be made but that the bed of the Mississippi belongs to the sovereign, that is, to the nation. Jefferson.
  5. 6.A gold coin of Great Britain, on which an effigy of the head of the reigning king or queen is stamped, valued at one pound sterling, or about $4.86.
  6. 7.(Zoöl.) Any butterfly of the tribe Nymphalidi, or genus Basilarchia, as the ursula and the viceroy.

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