pr-nswt

Egyptian

Etymology

From pr (“house, palace”) +‎ nswt (“king”) in a direct genitive construction. The written form demonstrates honorific transposition.

Pronunciation

 

• (reconstructed) IPA^(key): /ˌpaɾuwnijˈsiːwat/ → /ˌpaɾuwnijˈsiːjaʔ/ → /pəɾənəˈsiːʔə/ → /pəɾənəˈsiːʔ/

• (Old Egyptian, c. 2350 BCE) IPA^(key): /ˌpaɾuwnijˈsiːwat/
• (Middle Egyptian, c. 1700 BCE) IPA^(key): /ˌpaɾuwnijˈsiːjaʔ/
• (Amarna-period Late Egyptian, c. 1350 BCE) IPA^(key): /pəɾənəˈsiːʔə/
• (Late Egyptian, c. 800 BCE) IPA^(key): /pəɾənəˈsiːʔ/

• (modern Egyptological) IPA^(key): /pɛr nɛsuːt/
  • Conventional anglicization: per-nesut

Noun

 m

1. royal palace [since the Old Kingdom]

   Synonyms: ꜥḥ, jzt

2. (rare) a kind of royal palace contrasted with pr-bjtj, traditionally rendered as ‘palace of the king of Upper Egypt’
3. royal court, king together with his household and entourage
4. central administration, royal bureau
5. temple (as the palace of a god)

   Synonyms: ꜥḥ, jzt

Alternative forms

Alternative hieroglyphic writings of pr-nswt  

pr-nswt	pr-nswt	pr-nswt	pr-nswt

References

• “pr-nswt (lemma ID 400419)”, in Thesaurus Linguae Aegyptiae‎^[1], Corpus issue 20, Web app version 2.5.0, ed. by Tonio Sebastian Richter & Daniel A. Werning […] and Hans-Werner Fischer-Elfert & Peter Dils […], 2004–23 April 2026
• Erman, Adolf; Grapow, Hermann (1926), Wörterbuch der ägyptischen Sprache‎^[2], volume 1, Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, →ISBN, pages 513.3–513.5
• Faulkner, Raymond Oliver (1962), A Concise Dictionary of Middle Egyptian, Oxford: Griffith Institute, →ISBN, page 89
• James P[eter] Allen (2010), Middle Egyptian: An Introduction to the Language and Culture of Hieroglyphs, 2nd edition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 221.
• Gardiner, Alan (1953) “The Coronation of King Ḥaremḥab” in The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, vol.39, pages 24–25