underking
underking noun: an inferior or subordinate king; a viceroy.
Noun
underking (plural underkings)
- An inferior or subordinate king; a viceroy.
- From the Johore capital on the island of Pulau Penyengat in the Riau Archipelago, where Parani's brother became "underking" to a puppet Malay sultan, the Bugis extended their control over the tin negeri of Kedah and Perak, [...]1987, David P. Chandler, David Joel Steinberg, In Search of Southeast Asia
- Bede himself used it in this context, among others, referring for example to Peada, Penda's son and the underking of the Middle Saxons, as a princeps.1995, N. J. Higham, An English Empire
Forms of underking
| plural | underkings |
|---|---|
| alternative form | under-king |
Origin of underking
From Middle English underking, from Old English undercing, undercyning (“under-king, viceroy”), possibly from Proto-West Germanic *underkuning, from Proto-Germanic *underkuningaz, equivalent to under- + king. Cognate with Dutch onderkoning (“viceroy”), German Unterkönig (“underking”), Danish underkonge (“underking”), Swedish underkung (“underking”).
Words formed from underking
Questions about underking
- What does underking mean?
- Underking means an inferior or subordinate king; a viceroy.
- What part of speech is underking?
- Underking is a noun.
- What is the plural of underking?
- The plural of underking is underkings.
Words near underking in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: underking (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:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-underking.wav.
Cite this entry: “underking.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/underking. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.