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Sovereign vs Territory - What's the difference?

sovereign | territory |

As nouns the difference between sovereign and territory

is that sovereign is a monarch; the ruler of a country while territory is a large extent or tract of land; a region; a country; a district.

As an adjective sovereign

is exercising power of rule.

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

    territory

    English

    Noun

    (territories)
  • A large extent or tract of land; a region; a country; a district.
  • (Canada) One of three of Canada's federated entities, located in the country's Arctic, with fewer powers than a province and created by Act of Parliament rather than by the Constitution: Yukon, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut.
  • A geographic area under control of a single governing entity such as state or municipality; an area whose borders are determined by the scope of political power rather than solely by natural features such as rivers and ridges.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-03, volume=408, issue=8847, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= Boundary problems , passage=Economics is a messy discipline: too fluid to be a science, too rigorous to be an art. Perhaps it is fitting that economists’ most-used metric, gross domestic product (GDP), is a tangle too. GDP measures the total value of output in an economic territory . Its apparent simplicity explains why it is scrutinised down to tenths of a percentage point every month.}}
  • (zoology) An area that an animal of a particular species consistently defends against its conspecifics.
  • * {{quote-news, year=2011, date=October 1, author=Tom Fordyce, work=BBC Sport
  • , title= Rugby World Cup 2011: England 16-12 Scotland , passage=Scotland had the territory and the momentum, forcing England into almost twice as many tackles and rattling them repeatedly at set-pieces.}}
  • * 12 July 2012 , Sam Adams, AV Club Ice Age: Continental Drift
  • The matter of whether the world needs a fourth Ice Age movie pales beside the question of why there were three before it, but Continental Drift feels less like an extension of a theatrical franchise than an episode of a middling TV cartoon, lolling around on territory that’s already been settled.

    Derived terms

    * come with the territory * territorial * Territorial Army * territoriality * territorially * territorial waters