emperor

See also: Emperor

English

Alternative forms

• emperour (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English emperour, borrowed from Anglo-Norman emperour and Old French empereor (Modern French empereur), from Latin imperātor (“emperor; commander”), from imperāre (“to command”). Doublet of imperator.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈɛmpəɹə/, /ˈɛmpɹə/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈɛmpəɹɚ/, /ˈɛmpɹɚ/
• (General New Zealand) IPA^(key): /ˈempɘɹɘ/, /ˈempɹɘ/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

Noun

emperor (plural emperors)

1. The male monarch or ruler of an empire.
   • 1885, Miguel de Cervantes, John Ormsby (translator), Don Quixote Volume 2 Chapter XXIV

     They asked Julius Caesar, the valiant Roman emperor, what was the best death. He answered, that which is unexpected, which comes suddenly and unforeseen

2. Any monarch ruling an empire, irrespective of gender, with "empress" contrasting to mean when consort to emperor
   • 1994 Het Spinhuis, Transactions: Essays in Honor of Jeremy F. Boissevain

     In 690 Wu usurped the throne and became Emperor herself, which proved a unique event in the history of China.

   • 2002 The Heritage of World Civilizations: To 1700 page 226

     After his death in 683 she ruled for seven years as regent and then, deposing her son, became emperor herself, the only woman in Chinese history to hold the title.

   • 2008 Encyclopedia of Barbarian Europe: Society in Transformation page 211

     Empress, imperial regent, and even emperor herself (r. 797–802), Irene was an important and powerful figure at the Byzantine court in the late eighth and early ninth century.

   • 2013 Voyages in World History page 213

     Originally the wife of the emperor, she engineered the imperial succession so that she could serve first as regent to a boy emperor and then as emperor herself.

   • 2016, Commander Pakydus, "Sindbad & the 7 Galaxies"

     Where is Sindbad? I have a summons for him direct from the galactic emperor herself. He is to be brought here immediately to give an explanation for his recent actions.

3. (political theory) Specifically, the ruler of the Holy Roman Empire; the world-monarch.

   The Investiture Controversy was a conflict between the Emperor and the Pope.

4. The fourth trump or major arcana card of the tarot deck.
5. A large, relatively valuable marble in children's games.
   • 2001, Paul Webley, The economic psychology of everyday life, page 39:

     But marbles are not only used to play games: they are also traded. In this market, the value of the different kinds of marbles (oilies, emperors, etc.) is determined by local supply and demand and not by the price of the marbles […]

6. Any fish of the family Lethrinidae.
7. (entomology) Any of various butterflies of the subfamily Charaxinae.
8. (entomology) Any of various large dragonflies of the cosmopolitan genus Anax.

Usage notes

• The only monarch presently styled "emperor" is the Emperor of Japan (天皇, tennō). The British monarch ceased to be styled Emperor of India in 1948.
• An emperor is generally addressed as His Imperial Majesty.

Hyponyms

• barracks emperor

Derived terms

• emperor goose (Anser canagicus)
• emperor moth (Saturniinae)
• emperor paper
• emperor penguin (Aptenodytes forsteri)
• emperorship
• little emperor

 

Related terms

• empire
• empress
• imperial
• imperialism
• imperially

 

Translations

ruler of an empire

• Albanian: perandor (sq) m
• Arabic: قَيْصَر‎ m (qayṣar), إِمْبْرَاطُور‎ m (ʾimbrāṭūr)
• Armenian: կայսր (hy) (kaysr)

  Old Armenian: կայսր (kaysr), կեսար (kesar)

• Aromanian: ampirat m
• Asturian: emperador m
• Azerbaijani: imperator
• Basque: enperadorea
• Belarusian: імпера́тар m (impjerátar), цар m (car) (tsar)
• Bengali: সম্রাট (śômraṭ)
• Breton: impalaer (br)
• Bulgarian: импера́тор (bg) m (imperátor)
• Burmese: ဧကရာဇ် (my) (eka.raj)
• Catalan: emperador (ca) m
• Chinese:

  Cantonese: 皇帝 (wong⁴ dai³)

  Dungan: хуонди (huondi), хуоншон (huonšon)

  Mandarin: 皇帝 (zh) (huángdì), 帝王 (zh) (dìwáng), 皇上 (zh) (huángshang), 天皇 (zh) (tiānhuáng) (emperor of Japan)

• Coptic: ⲁⲩⲧⲟⲕⲣⲁⲧⲱⲣ m (autokratōr)
• Czech: císař (cs) m
• Danish: kejser (da) c
• Dutch: keizer (nl) m
• Dzongkha: རྒྱལ་ཆེན (rgyal chen)
• Esperanto: imperiestro
• Estonian: keiser (et), imperaator
• Extremaduran: emperaol m
• Finnish: keisari (fi)
• French: empereur (fr) m
• Friulian: imperadôr m
• Galician: emperador m
• Georgian: იმპერატორი (imṗeraṭori)
• German: Kaiser (de) m, Imperator (de) m
• Greek: αυτοκράτορας (el) m (aftokrátoras)

  Ancient: αὐτοκράτωρ m (autokrátōr), καῖσαρ m (kaîsar), αὐτάναξ m (autánax)

• Hebrew: קיסר \ קֵיסָר‎ (he) m (kesár, keysár)
• Hindi: सम्राट m (samrāṭ), महाराजा m (mahārājā), क़ैसर m (qaisar), कैसर (hi) m (kaisar)
• Hungarian: császár (hu)
• Icelandic: keisari (is) m
• Ido: cezaro (io), imperiestro (io)
• Indonesian: kaisar (id), maharaja (id)
• Interlingua: imperator
• Irish: impire m
• Italian: imperatore (it) m
• Japanese: 皇帝 (ja) (こうてい, kōtei) (emperor in general), 帝王 (ja) (ていおう, teiō) (general term for emperor or monarch), 天皇 (ja) (てんのう, tennō) (emperor of Japan), 帝 (ja) (みかど, mikado)
• Kazakh: император (ïmperator), патша (patşa)
• Khmer: អធិរាជ (km) (ʼaʼthiriəc), រាជាធិរាជ (riəciə thiriəc), សម្រាជ (km) (sɑmraac)
• Korean: 황제 (ko) (hwangje) (皇帝 (ko)), 천황 (ko) (cheonhwang) (天皇 (ko)) (emperor of Japan), 제왕 (ko) (jewang)
• Kurdish:

  Northern Kurdish: emperator (ku), qeyser (ku)

• Kyrgyz: император (ky) (imperator), падыша (ky) (padışa)
• Lao: ຈັກກະພັດ (chak ka phat), ຈັກກະວັດ (chak ka wat), ນໍຣິນ (nǭ rin), ນໍລິນ (nǭ lin), ຣາເຊນ (rā sēn)
• Latin: imperātor (la) m
• Latvian: imperators m, ķeizars m
• Lithuanian: imperatorius m, ciesorius m
• Low German:

  German Low German: Kaiser

• Luxembourgish: Keeser m

• Macedonian: импера́тор m (imperátor), цар m (car) (tsar)
• Malay: kaisar, maharaja, khakan
• Malayalam: സാമ്രാട്ട് (sāmrāṭṭŭ), ചക്രവർത്തി (ml) (cakravartti)
• Maltese: imperatur m
• Manchu: ᡥᡡᠸᠠᠩᡩᡳ (hūwangdi)
• Mandinka: mansa
• Manx: ard-ree m
• Maori: emepara, epara
• Marathi: सम्राट m (samrāṭ)
• Middle English: emperour
• Mongolian: эзэн хаан (ezen khaan)
• Norman: empéreu m (Jersey)
• North Frisian: keiser
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: keiser (no) m

  Nynorsk: keisar m

• Occitan: emperador (oc) m

  Old Occitan: emperador

• Old English: cāsere m
• Pashto: امپراتور‎ (ps) m (amparātúr), کيسر‎ m (kaysár), قيصر‎ (ps) m (qaysár)
• Persian: امپراطور‎ (fa) (emperâtor), قیصر‎ (fa) (qeysar)
• Polish: imperator (pl) m, cesarz (pl) m
• Portuguese: imperador (pt) m
• Punjabi: ਸਮਰਾਟ (pa) (samrāṭ)
• Quechua: qhapaq
• Romanian: împărat (ro) m
• Romansch: imperatur m, imperataur m, imperatour m, caiser m
• Russian: импера́тор (ru) m (imperátor), царь (ru) m (carʹ) (tsar)
• Sanskrit: अधिराज (sa) m (adhirāja), सम्राज् (sa) m (samrāj)
• Saterland Frisian: Kaiser
• Scottish Gaelic: ìmpire m
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: ца̏р m, импѐра̄тор m, це̏са̄р m

  Latin: cȁr (sh) m, impèrātor (sh) m, cȅsār (sh) m

• Sicilian: mpiraturi
• Silesian: cysŏrz
• Slovak: cisár (sk) m, cár (sk) m (of Russia, Bulgaria)
• Slovene: cêsar (sl) m, imperátor m
• Sorbian:

  Lower Sorbian: kejžor m

  Upper Sorbian: kejžor m

• Spanish: emperador (es) m
• Swahili: kaisari
• Swedish: kejsare (sv) c
• Tagalog: emperador (tl)
• Tajik: император (imperator)
• Tatar: патша (tt) (patşa)
• Telugu: చక్రవర్తి (te) (cakravarti)
• Thai: จักรพรรดิ (jàk-grà-pát), ฮ่องเต้ (hɔ̂ng-dtêe) (emperor of China)
• Turkish: imparator (tr), ilhan (tr)
• Turkmen: imperator
• Ukrainian: імпера́тор m (imperátor), цар (uk) m (car) (tsar)
• Urdu: سمراٹ‎ m (samrāṭ), قیصر‎ m (qaisar)
• Uyghur: ئىمپېراتور‎ (impërator)
• Uzbek: imperator (uz)
• Venetian: inperadore m, inperador m
• Vietnamese: hoàng đế (vi), thiên hoàng (of Japan)
• Vilamovian: kazer m
• Walloon: impreur (wa) m
• Welsh: ymerawdwr m
• West Frisian: keizer c
• Yiddish: קייסער‎ m (keyser), אימפּעראַטאָר‎ m (imperator)

fourth trump or major arcana card

Anagrams

• per orem