cyning

Old English cyning (also cyng) comes from Proto-Germanic *kuningaz, likely from *kunją (kin, family). A king was 'the kin-man' — the representative of the people, chosen from among the noble families. Cognates appear in every Germanic language: Old Norse konungr, Old High German kuning, Dutch koning, Swedish konung. The word predates divine-right monarchy. The earliest Germanic kings were elected by assemblies of free men, and the word reflects this: the king belonged to the kin before the kin belonged to the king.

Anglo-Saxon England had multiple kingdoms, and kingship was not automatically hereditary. The Witan — an assembly of nobles and clergy — chose the king from among eligible candidates. Harold Godwinson was elected king by the Witan in 1066. William the Conqueror won the crown by conquest, not by election. The Norman Conquest did not change the word, but it changed the institution. After 1066, English kingship was increasingly hereditary, centralized, and French-speaking. The Germanic kin-word named a Norman institution.

The divine right of kings — the doctrine that a king ruled by God's appointment and was accountable only to God — reached its peak in the seventeenth century. James I of England articulated it most explicitly. The English Civil War (1642-1651) and the execution of Charles I in 1649 challenged the doctrine violently. The Glorious Revolution of 1688 settled the matter: Parliament was sovereign, and the king ruled by parliamentary consent. The kin-man became the constitutional figurehead.

Chess, playing cards, and marketing have kept the word alive in contexts that have nothing to do with governance. The king of hearts, the burger king, the king-size bed, King Kong, King James Bible, the King of Pop. The word has been domesticated into a general-purpose superlative. To be king of something is to be the best at it. The kin-man's title became a compliment.