suzerain
Meanings
noun
- A dominant nation or state that has control over the international affairs of a subservient state which otherwise has domestic autonomy.
- A feudal landowner to whom vassals were forced to pledge allegiance.
Pronunciation
Word forms
Etymology
From French suzerain, based on sus (“up, above”) (from Latin sursum) with the ending of souverain (whence also English sovereign).
Derived words
Previous
This entry uses open data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA/GFDL). Word forms are used for search and are not indexed as separate pages.