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Despot vs Sovereign - What's the difference?

despot | sovereign |

As nouns the difference between despot and sovereign

is that despot is despot while sovereign is a monarch; the ruler of a country.

As an adjective sovereign is

exercising power of rule.

despot

English

Noun

(en noun)
  • A ruler with absolute power; a tyrant.
  • (label) A title awarded to senior members of the imperial family in the late Byzantine Empire, and claimed by various independent or semi-autonomous rulers in the Balkans (12th to 15th centuries)
  • Derived terms

    * despotate * despotism

    Anagrams

    * * *

    References

    ----

    sovereign

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Exercising power of rule.
  • sovereign nation
  • Exceptional in quality.
  • Extremely potent or effective (of a medicine, remedy etc.).
  • * 1590 , (Edmund Spenser), (The Faerie Queene) , III.v:
  • The soueraigne weede betwixt two marbles plaine / She pownded small, and did in peeces bruze, / And then atweene her lilly handes twaine, / Into his wound the iuyce thereof did scruze
  • * (rfdate) Dryden
  • a sovereign remedy
  • * (rfdate) South
  • Such a sovereign influence has this passion upon the regulation of the lives and actions of men.
  • Having supreme, ultimate power.
  • Princely; royal.
  • * (rfdate) Shakespeare
  • most sovereign name
  • Predominant; greatest; utmost; paramount.
  • * (rfdate) Hooker
  • We acknowledge him [God] our sovereign good.

    Derived terms

    * sovereignly

    Synonyms

    * autonomous * supreme

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A monarch; the ruler of a country.
  • * Jefferson
  • No question is to be made but that the bed of the Mississippi belongs to the sovereign , that is, to the nation.
  • One who is not a subject to a ruler or nation.
  • A gold coin of the United Kingdom, with a nominal value of one pound sterling but in practice used as a bullion coin.
  • A very large champagne bottle with the capacity of about 25 liters, equivalent to 33? standard bottles.
  • Any butterfly of the tribe , as the (ursula) and the viceroy.
  • Hyponyms

    * (monarch) king, queen

    Derived terms

    * sovereignty

    See also

    * half sovereign/half-sovereign English words not following the I before E except after C rule