reign
part of speech
noun (a reign, reigns); verb (reign, reigns, reigned, reigning)
meaning for a pupil
1) To reign is to rule a country as a king, queen or emperor. tree →
2) A reign is the period of time during which a king or queen rules. tree →
3) To reign can mean to be the strongest feeling or thing in a place, as in "Silence reigned". tree →
4) In sport, the reigning champion is the one who won last time and still holds the title. tree →
sense in the lessons
In history lessons pupils learn about the reigns of kings and queens and put them on timelines. In the Bible and church, Christians speak of God reigning and of the reign (kingdom) of God. In stories, "chaos reigned" means everything was in a mess. Phrases: "reign over", "during the reign of", "reigning champion", "reign supreme", "reign of terror".
examples
- Queen Victoria reigned for a very long time. tree →
- During the reign of King Henry VIII, England broke away from the Pope. tree →
- The lion reigns over the jungle in the story. tree →
- When the teacher walked in, silence reigned. tree →
- Our school is the reigning champion of the county quiz. tree →
- (church) Christians sing that Christ will reign for ever. tree →
- Chaos reigned in the kitchen while Dad made pancakes. tree →
- My father reigned over six kingdoms. tree →
note
Homophones: reign (to rule), rain (water from the sky), rein (the strap used to control a horse). A common trap is "free rein": it comes from horses, so it is spelled "rein", not "reign". The g is silent. In timeline maths, the length of a reign = year it ended − year it began.
In the corpora
- And these are the kings that reigned in the land of Edom, before there reigned any king over the children of Israel.
- And Bela the son of Beor reigned in Edom; and the name of his city was Dinhabah.
- And Bela died, and Jobab the son of Zerah of Bozrah reigned in his stead.
- And Jobab died, and Husham of the land of the Temanites reigned in his stead.
- And Hadad died, and Samlah of Masrekah reigned in his stead.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «reign» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.