Sovereignty

How to spell sovereignty

11 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce sovereignty

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does sovereignty mean?

1. nounSupreme political power, or a nation's right to govern itself without outside interference.

Sovereignty in a sentence

• The treaty was designed to protect the smaller nation's sovereignty.

• Parliament debated whether the trade deal would erode national sovereignty.

Where does sovereignty come from?

Language of origin: French

This word travelled into English from Old French soverainete, the noun built on soverain, meaning 'supreme' or 'a ruler'. The Old French form descends from the Vulgar Latin superanus, formed on the Latin super, which simply meant 'above' or 'over'; the idea was of a power standing over all others. English adopted it in the 1300s to describe supreme rank and ultimate authority, and over time it came to mean both the power of a monarch and the independent self-rule of a state. The notorious spelling trap is the silent 'g': there was never a 'g' in the Latin or early French forms, but medieval scribes wrongly inserted one by false association with the unrelated word 'reign' (from Latin regnum, 'kingdom'), and the misspelling stuck for good. Knowing that the 'eign' was borrowed by mistake from 'reign' is the surest way to remember that sovereignty hides that silent, illogical 'g'.

How the word is built

• sovereign (supreme ruler/authority, from soverain)
• -ty (noun suffix meaning 'state or quality of')