EMPEROR

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does emperor mean? 

• EMPEROR (noun)
  The noun EMPEROR has 4 senses:

1. the male ruler of an empire

2. red table grape of California

3. large moth of temperate forests of Eurasia having heavily scaled transparent wings

4. large richly colored butterfly

  Familiarity information: EMPEROR used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• EMPEROR (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The male ruler of an empire

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Hypernyms ("emperor" is a kind of...):

crowned head; monarch; sovereign (a nation's ruler or head of state usually by hereditary right)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "emperor"):

empress (a woman emperor or the wife of an emperor)

Holy Roman Emperor (sovereign of the Holy Roman Empire)

Kaiser (the title of the Holy Roman Emperors or the emperors of Austria or of Germany until 1918)

mikado; tenno (the emperor of Japan; when regarded as a religious leader the emperor is called tenno)

Emperor of Rome; Roman Emperor (sovereign of the Roman Empire)

Romanoff; Romanov (a member of the imperial family that ruled Russia)

Instance hyponyms:

Shah Jahan (Mogul emperor of India during whose reign the finest monuments of Mogul architecture were built (including the Taj Mahal at Agra) (1592-1666))

Ch'in Shih Huang Ti; Qin Shi Huang Ti (the first Qin emperor who unified China, built much of the Great Wall, standardized weights and measures, and created a common currency and legal system (died 210 BC))

Charles Louis Napoleon Bonaparte; Emperor Napoleon III; Napoleon III (nephew of Napoleon I and emperor of the French from 1852 to 1871 (1808-1873))

Bonaparte; Little Corporal; Napoleon; Napoleon Bonaparte; Napoleon I (French general who became emperor of the French (1769-1821))

Montezuma II (the last Aztec emperor in Mexico who was overthrown and killed by Hernando Cortes (1466-1520))

Meiji Tenno; Mutsuhito (emperor of Japan who encouraged the modernization of Japan (1852-1912))

Kubla Khan; Kublai Kaan; Kublai Khan (Mongolian emperor of China and grandson of Genghis Khan who completed his grandfather's conquest of China; he establish the Yuan dynasty and built a great capital on the site of modern Beijing where he received Marco Polo (1216-1294))

Justinian; Justinian I; Justinian the Great (Byzantine emperor who held the eastern frontier of his empire against the Persians; codified Roman law in 529; his general Belisarius regained North Africa and Spain (483-565))

Hirohito; Michinomiya Hirohito (emperor of Japan who renounced his divinity and became a constitutional monarch after Japan surrendered at the end of World War II (1901-1989))

Haile Selassie; Ras Tafari; Ras Tafari Makonnen (emperor of Ethiopia; worshipped by Rastafarians (1892-1975))

Genghis Khan; Jenghiz Khan; Jinghis Khan; Temujin (Mongolian emperor whose empire stretched from the Black Sea to the Pacific Ocean (1162-1227))

Francis Joseph; Francis Joseph I; Franz Josef I; Franz Joseph (emperor of Austria and king of Hungary; was defeated by Napoleon III at the battle of Magenta (1830-1916))

Derivation:

imperial (belonging to or befitting a supreme ruler)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Red table grape of California

Classified under:

Nouns denoting foods and drinks

Hypernyms ("emperor" is a kind of...):

vinifera grape (grape from a cultivated variety of the common grape vine of Europe)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Large moth of temperate forests of Eurasia having heavily scaled transparent wings

Classified under:

Nouns denoting animals

Synonyms:

emperor; emperor moth; Saturnia pavonia

Hypernyms ("emperor" is a kind of...):

saturniid; saturniid moth (large brightly colored and usually tropical moth; larvae spin silken cocoons)

Holonyms ("emperor" is a member of...):

genus Saturnia; Saturnia (type genus of the Saturniidae: emperor moth)

Sense 4

Meaning:

Large richly colored butterfly

Classified under:

Nouns denoting animals

Synonyms:

emperor; emperor butterfly

Hypernyms ("emperor" is a kind of...):

brush-footed butterfly; four-footed butterfly; nymphalid; nymphalid butterfly (medium to large butterflies found worldwide typically having brightly colored wings and much-reduced nonfunctional forelegs carried folded on the breast)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "emperor"):

Apatura iris; purple emperor (large European butterfly the male of which has wings shaded with purple)

Holonyms ("emperor" is a member of...):

Apatura; genus Apatura (large Old World butterflies)

 Context examples 

“Ah!” said the fisherman, “she wants to be emperor.”

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

These threads are proposed as prizes for those persons whom the emperor has a mind to distinguish by a peculiar mark of his favour.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

“Yes,” added the other; “and of the Roman emperors as low as Severus; besides a great deal of the heathen mythology, and all the metals, semi-metals, planets, and distinguished philosophers.”

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

For the first time our eyes rested upon this presentment of the great emperor, which seemed to raise such frantic and destructive hatred in the mind of the unknown.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

"It can give a very detailed account of how sea ice affects the life cycle of emperor penguins, their reproduction, and their mortality."

(Unless warming is slowed, emperor penguins will march toward extinction, National Science Foundation)

I've seen the imperial family several times, the emperor an ugly, hard-looking man, the empress pale and pretty, but dressed in bad taste, I thought—purple dress, green hat, and yellow gloves.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

Four of them carried him shoulder high, and he went like a Roman emperor.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He is a man of fifty, strong, active, with iron-grey hair, great bunched black eyebrows, the step of a deer and the air of an emperor—a fierce, masterful man, with a red-hot spirit behind his parchment face.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

"You are like a murderer—you are like a slave-driver—you are like the Roman emperors!" I had read Goldsmith's History of Rome, and had formed my opinion of Nero, Caligula, etc. Also I had drawn parallels in silence, which I never thought thus to have declared aloud.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Ah, wife! replied the fisherman, the fish cannot make an emperor, I am sure, and I should not like to ask him for such a thing.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)