What's the difference between
and
Enter two words to compare and contrast their definitions, origins, and synonyms to better understand how those words are related.

Master vs King - What's the difference?

master | king |

As nouns the difference between master and king

is that master is someone who has control over something or someone while king is a male monarch; a man who heads a monarchy. If it's an absolute monarchy, then he is the supreme ruler of his nation.

As verbs the difference between master and king

is that master is {{cx|intransitive|lang=en}} To be a master while king is to crown king, to make (a person) king.

As an adjective master

is masterful.

As a proper noun King is

the title of a king.

master

English

Etymology 1

From (etyl) maister, mayster, meister, from (etyl) ). Reinforced by (etyl) maistre, mestre from the same Latin source.

Alternative forms

* (l) (dialectal), (l) (dialectal) * mastre (obsolete)

Noun

(en noun)
  • Someone who has control over something or someone.
  • * Addison
  • master of a hundred thousand drachms
  • * Jowett (Thucyd.)
  • We are masters of the sea.
  • *
  • , title=(The Celebrity), chapter=4 , passage=The Celebrity, by arts unknown, induced Mrs. Judge Short and two other ladies to call at Mohair on an afternoon when Mr. Cooke was trying a trotter on the track.
  • The owner of an animal or slave.
  • (nautical) The captain of a merchant ship; a master mariner.
  • Someone who employs others.
  • *
  • , title=(The Celebrity), chapter=4 , passage=No matter how early I came down, I would find him on the veranda, smoking cigarettes, or otherwise his man would be there with a message to say that his master would shortly join me if I would kindly wait.}}
  • An expert at something.
  • * Macaulay
  • great masters of ridicule
  • * John Locke
  • No care is taken to improve young men in their own language, that they may thoroughly understand and be masters of it.
  • A tradesman who is qualified to teach apprentices.
  • (dated) A schoolmaster.
  • A skilled artist.
  • (dated) A man or a boy; mister. See Master.
  • * Jonathan Swift
  • Where there are little masters and misses in a house, they are impediments to the diversions of the servants.
  • A master's degree; a type of postgraduate degree, usually undertaken after a bachelor degree.
  • A person holding such a degree.
  • The original of a document or of a recording.
  • (film) The primary wide shot of a scene, into which the closeups will be edited later.
  • (legal) A parajudicial officer (such as a referee, an auditor, an examiner, or an assessor) specially appointed to help a court with its proceedings.
  • (engineering) A device that is controlling other devices or is an authoritative source (e.g. master database).
  • A person holding an office of authority among the Freemasons, especially the presiding officer; also, a person holding a similar office in other civic societies.
  • Synonyms
    * (sense, master's degree) masters, master's * (sense, master's degree) magistrate (Quebec English) * (film) establishing shot, long shot * (ship) skipper, captain * See also
    Derived terms
    (master) * ballet master * barmaster * beemaster * bergmaster * boroughmaster * brewmaster * burghomaster * burgomaster * bushmaster * chess master * cockmaster * concertmaster * craftsmaster * dockmaster * drill master/drillmaster * games master/games-master * Grand Master/grandmaster * harbor master/harbor-master/harbormaster * headmaster * house master/housemaster * ironmaster * * jumpmaster * loadmaster * lockmaster * master bedroom * master bricklayer * master builder * master card * master cast * master class * master copy * master cylinder * master file * master gland * master key * master mariner * master mason * Master of Arts * master of ceremonies * Master of Science * master plan/master-plan/masterplan * master race * master sergeant * master status * master tradesman * master trust * master-at-arms * masterdom * masterful * masterhood * masterless * masterly * mastermind * masterous * masterpiece * Masters * mastership * mastersinger * masterstroke * masterwork * mastery * metal master * mint-master * old master * past master * paymaster * postmaster * property master * puppet master/puppet-master/puppetmaster * quartermaster * question master/question-master/questionmaster * quizmaster * rattlesnake master * ringmaster * roaming master * saymaster * schoolmaster * scoutmaster * sheepmaster * shipmaster * spymaster * stationmaster * taskmaster * toastmaster * trackmaster * trainmaster * undermaster * watermaster * webmaster * weighmaster * whoremaster * workmaster * wreck master/wreck-master/wreckmaster * yardmaster
    See also
    * (l) * (l)

    Adjective

    (-)
  • Masterful.
  • Main, principal or predominant.
  • Highly skilled.
  • Original.
  • Verb

    (en verb)
  • To become the master of; to subject to one's will, control, or authority; to conquer; to overpower; to subdue.
  • * (and other bibliographic details) (John Locke)
  • Obstinacy and willful neglects must be mastered , even though it cost blows.
  • * 1898 , , (Moonfleet) Chapter 4
  • Then Elzevir cried out angrily, 'Silence. Are you mad, or has the liquor mastered you? Are you Revenue-men that you dare shout and roister? or contrabandiers with the lugger in the offing, and your life in your hand. You make noise enough to wake folk in Moonfleet from their beds.'
  • To learn to a high degree of proficiency.
  • It took her years to master the art of needlecraft.
  • (obsolete) To own; to posses.
  • * (and other bibliographic details) (Shakespeare)
  • the wealth that the world masters
  • To make a master copy of.
  • To earn a Master's degree.
  • He mastered in English at the state college.
    Derived terms
    (Terms derived from the noun "master") * bemaster * masterable * overmaster * remaster

    Etymology 2

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (nautical, in combination) A vessel having a specified number of masts.
  • a two-master

    Statistics

    *

    Anagrams

    * ----

    king

    English

    (wikipedia king)

    Etymology 1

    From (etyl) (m), (m), from (etyl) (m), .

    Alternative forms

    * (l) (archaic), (l) (archaic)

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A male monarch; a man who heads a monarchy. If it's an absolute monarchy, then he is the supreme ruler of his nation.
  • :
  • A powerful or influential person.
  • :
  • *
  • *:"I wish we were back in Tenth Street. But so many children came"
  • *{{quote-magazine, date=2014-06-21, volume=411, issue=8892, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= Magician’s brain , passage=The truth is that [Isaac] Newton was very much a product of his time. The colossus of science was not the first king of reason, Keynes wrote after reading Newton’s unpublished manuscripts. Instead “he was the last of the magicians”.}}
  • Something that has a preeminent position.
  • :
  • *{{quote-news, year=2012, date=June 3, author=Nathan Rabin, title= TV: Review: THE SIMPSONS (CLASSIC): “Mr. Plow” (season 4, episode 9; originally aired 11/19/1992)
  • , passage=It would be difficult, for example, to imagine a bigger, more obvious subject for comedy than the laughable self-delusion of washed-up celebrities, especially if the washed-up celebrity in question is Adam West, a camp icon who can go toe to toe with William Shatner as the king of winking self-parody.}}
  • A component of certain games.
  • #The principal chess piece, that players seek to threaten with unavoidable capture to result in a victory by checkmate. It is often the tallest piece, with a symbolic crown with a cross at the top.
  • #A playing card with the image of a king on it.
  • #A checker (a piece of checkers/draughts) that reached the farthest row forward, thus becoming crowned (either by turning it upside-down, or by stacking another checker on it) and gaining more freedom of movement.
  • A king skin.
  • :
  • A male dragonfly; a drake.
  • Coordinate terms
    * (monarch) emperor, empress, maharajah, prince, princess, queen, regent, royalty, viceroy * (playing card) ace, jack, joker, queen
    Derived terms
    * dragonking * King Billy * king cake * king of the hill * kingdom * kingly * kingmaker * kingmanship * King's English * king's ransom * Kingston * priest-king
    See also
    * *

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To crown king, to make (a person) king.
  • * 1982 , South Atlantic Modern Language Association, South Atlantic Review , Volume 47, page 16,
  • The kinging of Macbeth is the business of the first part of the play .
  • * 2008 , William Shakespeare, A. R. Braunmuller (editor), Macbeth , Introduction, page 24,
  • One narrative is the kinging and unkinging of Macbeth; the other narrative is the attack on Banquo's line and that line's eventual accession and supposed Jacobean survival through Malcolm's successful counter-attack on Macbeth.
  • To rule over as king.
  • * (William Shakespeare), , Act 2, Scene 4,
  • And let us do it with no show of fear; / No, with no more than if we heard that England / Were busied with a Whitsun morris-dance; / For, my good liege, she is so idly king’d , / Her sceptre so fantastically borne / By a vain, giddy, shallow, humorous youth, / That fear attends her not.
  • To perform the duties of a king.
  • * 1918 , Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen, The Railroad Trainman , Volume 35, page 675,
  • He had to do all his kinging after supper, which left him no time for roystering with the nobility and certain others.
  • * 2001 , Chip R. Bell, Managers as Mentors: Building Partnerships for Learning , page 6,
  • Second, Mentor (the old man) combined the wisdom of experience with the sensitivity of a fawn in his attempts to convey kinging skills to young Telemachus.
  • To assume or pretend preeminence (over); to lord it over.
  • * 1917 , Edna Ferber, Fanny Herself , page 32,
  • The seating arrangement of the temple was the Almanach de Gotha of Congregation Emanu-el. Old Ben Reitman, patriarch among the Jewish settlers of Winnebago, who had come over an immigrant youth, and who now owned hundreds of rich farm acres, besides houses, mills and banks, kinged it from the front seat of the center section.
  • To promote a piece of draughts/checkers that has traversed the board to the opposite side, that piece subsequently being permitted to move backwards as well as forwards.
  • * 1957 , Bertram Vivian Bowden (editor), Faster Than Thought: A Symposium on Digital Computing Machines , page 302,
  • If the machine does this, it will lose only one point, and as it is not looking far enough ahead, it cannot see that it has not prevented its opponent from kinging but only postponed the evil day.
  • * 1986 , Rick DeMarinis, The Burning Women of Far Cry , page 100,
  • I was about to make a move that would corner a piece that she was trying to get kinged , but I slid my checker back.
  • To dress and perform as a drag king.
  • * 2008 , Audrey Yue, King Victoria: Asian Drag Kings, Postcolonial Female Masculinity, and Hybrid Sexuality in Australia'', in Fran Martin, Peter Jackson, Audrey Yue, Mark McLelland (editors), ''AsiaPacifQueer: Rethinking Genders and Sexualities , page 266,
  • Through the ex-centric diaspora, kinging in postcolonial Australia has become a site of critical hybridity where diasporic female masculinities have emerged through the contestations of "home" and "host" cultures.

    Etymology 2

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (Chinese musical instrument)
  • Statistics

    *

    Anagrams

    * (l) 1000 English basic words ----