Male rulers of kingdoms; the most powerful pieces in chess. Plural of king.
From Old English 'cyning' meaning 'tribal leader', related to 'cynn' (family, tribe). The word has Germanic roots and cognates across European languages. Originally denoted leadership based on kinship rather than territory.
The word 'king' originally meant 'son of the tribe' - leadership was familial, not territorial. This explains why even constitutional monarchies maintain the fiction of royal 'bloodlines' and why we still use kinship metaphors for leadership roles.
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