a cat may look at a king
A purported inferior has certain rights or prerogatives, even in the presence of a purported superior.
ADJ
rightful | anointed, crowned
uncrowned
She was the uncrowned king of the office, making all the important decisions before anyone else.
deposed, exiled
VERB + KING
become
crown (sb), make sb, proclaim sb
After the revolution, the people decided to proclaim a new king to lead their nation.
depose, put aside
KING + VERB
reign, rule, rule (over) sb/sth
Queen Victoria reigned over the British Empire for more than sixty years.
abdicate
When the old king abdicated, his son became ruler of the country.
PREP
under a/the ~
People lived more peacefully under the old king than they do today.
~ of
The lion is known as the king of the jungle because of his strength and power.
noun
A male monarch; a man who heads a monarchy; in an absolute monarchy, the supreme ruler of his nation.
Henry VIII was the king of England from 1509 to 1547.
Charles the third became the new king of England from 2022.
The monarch with the most power and authority in a monarchy, regardless of sex.
The British Parliament has had made it for it in the past the claim that it could do anything excepting convert a woman into a man.[…]And the high court [of Amsterdam] has done it by deciding that all officials and public servants shall take their oath of allegiance not to Queen Wilhelmina but to King Wilhelmina.
Hatshepsut was ruling as a king, not queen and she needed to be recognised as such.
A male leader of a traditional Aboriginal group, often used as a title by colonists.
Old Culwaddy the ‘king’, squatting by the galley fire, looked up questioningly[.]
A powerful or majorly influential person; someone who holds the preeminent position.
Howard Stern styled himself as the "king of all media".
"I wish we were back in Tenth Street. But so many children came[…]and the Tenth Street house wasn't half big enough; and a dreadful speculative builder built this house and persuaded Austin to buy it. Oh, dear, and here we are among the rich and great; and the steel kings and copper kings and oil kings and their heirs and dauphins.[…]"
Something that has a preeminent position.
In times of financial panic, cash is king.
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.
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 […] .
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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[…].
noun
Alternative form of qing (“Chinese musical instrument”).
A purported inferior has certain rights or prerogatives, even in the presence of a purported superior.
A children's game in which one player stands on top of a hill or other location atop an incline, and attempts to repel other players whose goal is to capture his position.
He twisted his ankle while playing king of the hill and was not allowed to play again.
Even someone with limited abilities or opportunities is dominant over, and considered special by, those who have even fewer abilities and opportunities; the value of any ability depends on its prevalence.
Their bread tastes like rock / Joining circles of the dead / As I am drinking all the sewage / Of the damage they call help / In the land of the blind / The one-eyed^([sic]) is a k
The lion.
“Who shot the lions?” Fred asked. / “Yours truly,” answered Terry. “I shot them with my little gun. I wouldn’t tell a lie for a dozen lions.” Nearly every one in the command laughe
Alternative form of a cat may look at a king.
a doctrine which James characteristically parodied as the belief that a cat cannot look at a king unless some higher entity is looking at them both.
Henry VIII was the king of England from 1509 to 1547.
WiktionaryCharles the third became the new king of England from 2022.
WiktionaryThe British Parliament has had made it for it in the past the claim that it could do anything excepting convert a woman into a man.[…]And the high court [of Amsterdam] has done it by deciding that all
Wiktionary1982, 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 […] .
WiktionaryOne 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
WiktionaryAnd 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 fantast
Wiktionaryi Register
In some senses, king is marked as historical, UK. Watch for register when choosing this word.