sovereign
Americannoun
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sovereigns
plural
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a monarch; a king, queen, or other supreme ruler.
-
a person who has supreme power or authority.
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a group or body of persons or a state having sovereign authority.
- Synonyms:
- government
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a gold coin of the United Kingdom, equal to one pound sterling: went out of circulation after 1914.
adjective
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belonging to or characteristic of a sovereign or sovereign authority; royal.
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having supreme rank, power, or authority.
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supreme; preeminent; indisputable.
a sovereign right.
- Synonyms:
- predominant, principal, paramount, chief
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greatest in degree; utmost or extreme.
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being above all others in character, importance, excellence, etc.
-
efficacious; potent.
a sovereign remedy.
noun
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a person exercising supreme authority, esp a monarch
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a former British gold coin worth one pound sterling
adjective
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supreme in rank or authority
a sovereign lord
-
excellent or outstanding
a sovereign remedy
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of, relating to, or characteristic of a sovereign
-
independent of outside authority
a sovereign state
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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nonsovereignnoun
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subsovereignnoun
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undersovereignnoun
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quasi-sovereignadjective
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supersovereignadjective
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unsovereignadjective
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nonsovereignlyadverb
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sovereignlyadverb
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of sovereign
First recorded in 1250–1300; Middle English soverain, altered by influence of reign, from Old French soverain, from Vulgar Latin superānus (unrecorded), equivalent to Latin super- super- + -ānus -an
Explanation
Put simply, your sovereign is your king or queen. George III was the sovereign of Great Britain and her colonies — including the American ones. At least he was until a little thing called the Revolutionary War upset everything. Sovereign as an adjective can be used to indicate the ultimate power of a state, whether a monarchy or not, as in "Peru exercised its sovereign rights to all minerals within its borders." A sovereign is also a British gold coin with a face value of one pound sterling (with the monarch's face on it). But don't sell it for a pound, because it's worth its weight in gold — quite literally — which is a lot more than a pound is worth.
Vocabulary lists containing sovereign
"On Women's Right to Vote" by Susan B. Anthony
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American Born Chinese
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Chains
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Customers can either download the model to their own servers, or access it via Mistral's infrastructure, including in "our European sovereign region where data stays under EU jurisdiction to ensure data remains under their control".
From Barron's ● Oct. 6, 2026
The party said it would be capable of defending the UK's critical national infrastructure, military bases and sovereign territories from sophisticated threats.
From BBC ● Oct. 5, 2026
“The big question is whether this is the start of a new euro sovereign crisis or whether markets have already overshot,” Deutsche Bank’s Jim Reid said.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 5, 2026
“Whatever the mechanism, real rates are very high. At some point that is simply the clearing price for fiscally dominant economies trying to attract enough private capital to fund enormous sovereign borrowing,” he says.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 30, 2026
“You’re a sovereign, my lord. Your peers on the Prime World of the Ekumen wait for a word from you.”
From "The Left Hand of Darkness" by Ursula K. Le Guin
Normally a potential reluctance among those three sovereigns to buy U.S.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 20, 2026
One-time “fragile five” sovereigns like South Africa or Turkey have gotten their houses substantially in order in recent years.
From Barron's ● Apr. 20, 2026
The group will work with McCormick “on partnering with governments and sovereigns to build, deploy, invest in, and finance Meta’s infrastructure,” said Zuckerberg in a Facebook post.
From Barron's ● Jan. 12, 2026
—Eurozone government bond yields were little changed in early trade, after a week where there was total issuance of 66.3 billion euros from a variety of sovereigns via auctions and syndicated deals.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 9, 2026
The stranger drew out a leather pouch and shook ten gold sovereigns from it onto the table.
From "The Shakespeare Stealer" by Gary L. Blackwood
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
