Definition of "reign"

reign

/ɹeɪn/

noun
plural reigns
1. The exercise of sovereign power.
  Quotations
  Throughout history, no single dictator has successfully upheld their reign forever, no matter how powerful they seemed to be.
  2020 December 6, Xin Yan, “The Seemingly Impossible Is Possible”, in Minghui‎
2. The period during which a monarch rules.
3. The territory or sphere over which a kingdom; empire; realm; dominion, etc. is ruled.
  Quotations
  And the Fox guileful, and most covetous; / That neither pleased was, to have the reign / Twixt them divided into even twain
  1591, Ed[mund] Sp[enser], “Prosopopoia. Or Mother Hubberds Tale.”, in Complaints. Containing Sundrie Small Poemes of the Worlds Vanitie. […], London: […] William Ponsonbie, […]
verb
third-person singular simple present reigns, present participle reigning, simple past and past participle reigned
1. (intransitive) To exercise sovereign power, to rule as a monarch.
  Quotations
  Both we will raigne as Conſuls of the earth,And mightie kings ſhall be our Senators.
  c. 1587–1588, [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592; reprinted as Tamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire, London: Scolar Press, 1973, (please specify the page)
2. (transitive, rare, nonstandard) To reign over (a country)
  Quotations
  The House of Piast reigned Poland from its foundation to 1385.
  2007, Anna Chilewska, Writing after the gaze: the rupture of the historical‎
3. To be the winner of the most recent iteration of a competition.
4. To be a dominant quality of a place or situation; to prevail, predominate, rule.
  Quotations
  Silence reigned, broken only by the hideous screeching of vultures and the sound of a lawn-mower being used in the hospital grounds.
  1936, F.J. Thwaites, The Redemption, Sydney: H. John Edwards Publishing, published 1940, page 58
  Unfortunately – and ironically – the word ‘system’ itself is used in such a wide variety of contexts within animal science, as indeed it is in virtually every domain of human activity, that confusion reigns about what a systems-oriented research programme actually looks like and what systems-oriented animal scientists actually do.
  2007, Richard Bawden, “Redesigning Animal Agriculture: a Systemic Perspective”, in David L. Swain, Ed Charmley, John Steel, Shaun Coffey, editors, Redesigning Animal Agriculture: The Challenge of the 21st Century‎, CABI, page 1

Definition of "reign"

reign

noun

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Quotations

verb

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Quotations