regal

English

Alternative forms

• regall (obsolete)

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈɹiːɡəl/

  • Audio (Southern England)

    (file)

• Rhymes: -iːɡəl

Etymology 1

From Middle English regal, from Old French regal (“regal, royal”), from Latin rēgālis (“royal, kingly”), from rex (“king”); also regere (“to rule”). Doublet of royal (“belonging to a monarch”), real (“unit of currency”), ariary, and riyal. Cognate with Spanish real.

Adjective

regal (comparative more regal, superlative most regal)

1. Of or relating to royalty.

   regal authority

   the regal title

   • 1649, J[ohn] Milton, ΕΙΚΟΝΟΚΛΆΣΤΗΣ  , London: Matthew Simmons, , →OCLC:

     He made a scorn of his regal oath.

2. Befitting a king, queen, emperor, or empress.
   • 2013 August 10, Lexington, “Keeping the mighty honest”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8848:

     The [Washington] Post's proprietor through those turbulent [Watergate] days, Katharine Graham, held a double place in Washington’s hierarchy: at once regal Georgetown hostess and scrappy newshound, ready to hold the establishment to account.

   • 2018 July 14, Gary Lineker, Twitter‎, retrieved 2018-07-15:

     Terrific movement from The Queen here. Gets behind the defender, goes one way then cuts back inside. Regal attacking play.

   • 2022 December 10, Harry Taylor, “Liz Truss and I ‘got carried away’ writing mini-budget, admits Kwasi Kwarteng”, in The Guardian‎:

     Kwarteng said he had urged Truss to “slow down” over reforms, but a cabinet minister told the FT that she felt “invincible, almost regal”.

3. Befitting a king, or emperor.
   • c. 1898, Truth, column 2:

     The children to whom I acted as cicerone almost screamed with glee as they saw the four-and-twenty blackbirds emerging from the pie-crust in front of the astonished King; and when the climax of the inconsequential story was reached, by way of the regal counting house and the “reginal” parlour, and a blackbird (presumably one of the four-and-twenty that had been temporarily immured in the pie) was seen about to revenge himself on the innocent nose of the guiltless laundry-maid, a veritable climax of enthusiasm was reached.

   • c. 1947, Hobbies, page 27, column 1:

     The crown seals, a regal crown and a reginal crown are unengraved, but from the motif I judge they symbolize King William III of England and Queen Mary, (see 1688, English History) who formerly ruled Holland as Prince William, Consort, and Queen Mary — The House of Orange.

   • 1973, Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt, page 78, column 2:

     In any case, the discrepancy might be explained by the fact that the 9th pylon has not yet disgorged all it blocks; it is in the talatat from this pylon that the masonry of the essentially regal (as opposed to reginal) temples Tni-mnw and Rwd-mnw predominate.

Coordinate terms

• reginal

Derived terms

Related terms

• regime
• regimen

Translations

See also

• kingly
• royal
• splendid
• stately

Etymology 2

From Middle French régale, possibly from Old French regol (“a gutter, channel”).

Noun

regal (plural regals)

1. (music) A small, portable organ whose sound is produced by brass beating reeds without amplifying resonators. Its tone is keen and rich in harmonics. The regal was common in the 16th and 17th centuries, and has been revived for the performance of music from those times.
2. (music) An organ stop of the reed family, furnished with a normal beating reed, but whose resonator is a fraction of its natural length. In the 16th and 17th centuries these stops took a multitude of forms. Today only one survives that is of universal currency, the so-called vox humana.

Translations

Anagrams

• Agler, Alger, Elgar, Large, Ragle, ergal, glare, lager, large

Catalan

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): (Central, Balearic)
• IPA^(key): (Valencian)

• Audio

  (file)

Noun

regal m (plural regals)

1. present; gift

Related terms

• regalar

Old French

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin rēgālem. Doublet of roial, which was inherited.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /reˈɡal/

Adjective

regal m (oblique and nominative feminine singular regale)

1. regal

Descendants

• Middle French: regal
• → Middle English: regal
  • English: regal

Romanian

Etymology 1

Borrowed from Latin rēgālis. By surface analysis, rege +‎ -al.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /reˈɡal/

Adjective

regal m or n (feminine singular regală, masculine plural regali, feminine and neuter plural regale)

1. royal
2. regal

Declension

Synonyms

• regesc

Antonyms

• neregal
• neregesc

Related terms

• rege

Etymology 2

Borrowed from French régal.

Noun

regal n (plural regale)

1. feast
2. banquet