Monarch

How to spell monarch

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce monarch

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does monarch mean?

1. nounA sovereign head of state, such as a king or queen, who reigns over a country.
2. nounA large orange and black butterfly known for its long seasonal migration across North America.

Monarch in a sentence

• The reigning monarch opened parliament with a formal address.

• Each autumn the monarch migrates thousands of miles south to warmer regions.

• Each monarch in the dynasty was crowned in the same cathedral.

• The garden was planted with milkweed to attract the monarch during summer.

Where does monarch come from?

Language of origin: Greek

The word comes from the Greek monarkhes, a ruler who governs alone, built from monos meaning 'single' or 'alone' and arkhein meaning 'to rule'. Greek passed it into Latin as monarcha, and from there it travelled through Old French into English during the late 1400s. The literal sense, 'one who rules by himself', survives intact in the modern meaning of a sovereign king or queen. The same monos element appears in everyday words like 'monopoly' and 'monotone', while the -arch ending links it to 'anarchy' (literally 'no ruler') and 'hierarchy'. The North American butterfly was later named monarch in the 1800s, supposedly for its regal orange and black colouring; the silent 'ch' pronounced as a hard 'k' is the spelling detail that most often trips writers.

How the word is built

• mon- (from monos: single, alone)
• -arch (from arkhein: to rule)