Word.ws English Dictionary

suzerains

suzerains is the plural of suzerain.

Meaning of suzerain

Noun

suzerain (plural suzerains)

  1. (international politics) A dominant nation or state that has control over the international affairs of a subservient state which otherwise has domestic autonomy.
    • Suzerainty is a term which was originally used for the relation between the feudal lord and his vassal; the lord was said to be the suzerain of the vassal, and at that time suzerainty was a term of Constitutional Law only. With the disappearance of the feudal system, suzerainty of this kind...1920–1921, L[assa Francis Lawrence] Oppenheim, edited by Ronald F. Roxburgh, International Law: A Treatise, 3rd edition, volume I (Peace), London; New York, N.Y.: Longman, Green and Co., page 162
  2. (historical) A feudal landowner to whom vassals were forced to pledge allegiance.

Questions about suzerains

What is suzerains the plural of?
Suzerains is the plural of suzerain.

Words near suzerains in the dictionary

  1. Suzdal
  2. Suze
  3. suzerain
  4. suzeraine
  5. suzeraines
  6. suzerains
  7. suzerainship
  8. suzerainships
  9. suzerainties
  10. suzerainty
  11. suzereignty

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: suzerains (page history and authors); suzerain (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “suzerains.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/suzerains. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.