Pronounced: uh-NEL-uh-duhs, adj
Notes: I didn’t have a guess at to the meaning of this word
Yesterday’s word
The word regnant means
- exercising rule; reigning
- having the chief power
- of common or widespread occurrence
First usage
Our word came into English in the late 1500s
Background / Comments
As I noted yesterday, I have heard a similar expression to our word in the expression “regnal number”, which means the number after the monarch’s name, such as the “II” (2) in “Queen Elizabeth II”. Our word came from the Latin verb regnare (to reign), which traces back to the noun regnum (reign), which came from rex (king).
Richard's Vocabulary Word-of-the-Day 