interregnum
/ˌɪntəɹˈɹɛɡnəm/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.21 in modern English
14
Scrabble Score
11
Letters
4
Syllables
8
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A period of time between the end of one monarch's reign and the accession of their successor.
noun
A break in continuity; a gap, an intermission.
noun
A period of time between when a minister or pastor leaves a church and when a new one is installed.
noun
A period of time between the end of one political leader's term and the start of the term of their successor; a period of time during which normal executive leadership is interrupted or suspended, and a polity is either left without leadership or has only a temporary one.
noun
A temporary exercise of authority or rule during a period of time when there is no monarch or political leader.
Obsolete
Example Sentences
- "The Sasanian Interregnum of 628–632"
- "It was not till the kings had been shorn of power and the interregnum of sham democracy had set in, leaving no virile force in the state or the world to resist the money power, that the opportunity for a world-wide plutocratic despotism arrived."
- "Is it not Pelham who wonders what becomes of servants when they are not wanted;—whether, like the tones of an instrument, they exist but when called for? About servants we will not decide; but that some such interregnum certainly occurs in female existence on rising from table, no one can doubt who ever noted the sound of the dining and the silence of the drawing-room."
- "This was in that strange pause of the storm which is its most remarkable feature in the South—that singular interregnum of the winds, when, after giving repeated notice of their most terrific action, they seem almost to forget their purpose, and for a few moments appear to slumber in their inactivity."
- "Between the end of the Fowler régime in 1931 and the advent of Stanier in 1932, there was a short interregnum during which Ernest Lemon was in charge, with Ernest Beames as his principal aide-de-camp."
- "All I know is that you could, if you wanted to, find the answers to all sorts of difficult questions buried in that terrible war-torn interregnum between the first pubic hair and the first soiled Durex."
Etymology
Learned borrowing from Latin interrēgnum, from inter- (prefix meaning ‘between’) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₁entér (“between”)) + rēgnum (“reign; royal power”) (nominalized from the neuter of *rēgnus, from rēx (“king; ruler”, oblique stem rēg-) + -nus (suffix forming adjectives), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₃reǵ- (“to righten; to straighten”)). The plural form interregna is a learned borrowing from Latin interrēgna.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: *h₃reǵ-, *h₁entér
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˌɪntəɹˈɹɛɡnəm/
- British English: /ɪntəˈɹɛɡnəm/