DIVINE RIGHT • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Divine right

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/dɪvˈaɪn raɪt/ Listen

noun

Right n.

1.

That which is right or correct. Specifically:

(a)

The straight course; adherence to duty; obedience to lawful authority, divine or human; freedom from guilt, the opposite of moral wrong.

(b)

A true statement; freedom from error of falsehood; adherence to truth or fact. "Seldom your opinions err; Your eyes are always in the right."

(c)

A just judgment or action; that which is true or proper; justice; uprightness; integrity. "Long love to her has borne the faithful knight, And well deserved, had fortune done him right."

2.

That to which one has a just claim. Specifically:

(a)

That which one has a natural claim to exact. "There are no rights whatever, without corresponding duties."

(b)

That which one has a legal or social claim to do or to exact; legal power; authority; as, a sheriff has a right to arrest a criminal.

(c)

That which justly belongs to one; that which one has a claim to possess or own; the interest or share which anyone has in a piece of property; title; claim; interest; ownership. "Born free, he sought his right." "Hast thou not right to all created things?" "Men have no right to what is not reasonable."

(d)

Privilege or immunity granted by authority.

3.

The right side; the side opposite to the left. "Led her to the Souldan's right."

4.

In some legislative bodies of Europe (as in France), those members collectively who are conservatives or monarchists. See Center, 5.

5.

The outward or most finished surface, as of a piece of cloth, a carpet, etc.

At all right, at all points; in all respects. (Obs.)

Bill of rights, a list of rights; a paper containing a declaration of rights, or the declaration itself. See under Bill.

By right, By rights, or By good rights, rightly; properly; correctly. "He should himself use it by right." "I should have been a woman by right."

Divine right, or

Divine right of kings, a name given to the patriarchal theory of government, especially to the doctrine that no misconduct and no dispossession can forfeit the right of a monarch or his heirs to the throne, and to the obedience of the people.

To rights.

(a)

In a direct line; straight. (R.)

(b)

At once; directly. (Obs. or Colloq.)

To set to rights, To put to rights, to put in good order; to adjust; to regulate, as what is out of order.

Writ of right (Law), a writ which lay to recover lands in fee simple, unjustly withheld from the true owner.

See images of 'Divine right'

Etymology of 'Divine right'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Divine right" Quotes from Famous Books

... Parliament; but it is held by jurists that every Parliament is sovereign and has the power of repealing any act of any former Parliament. The beneficial rule of some of the latter monarchs of this family has endeared them to the people, but the doctrine of reigning by divine right, the favorite idea of the Stuarts, is nullified, when the monarch ascends the throne by statute law and not by ...

— Landholding In England • Joseph Fisher

... factor in bringing about this extraordinary change in public opinion. Hostile criticism of the Constitution soon "gave place to an undiscriminating and almost blind worship of its principles ... and criticism was estopped.... The divine right of kings never ran a more prosperous course than did this unquestioned prerogative of the Constitution to receive universal homage. The conviction that our institutions were the best in the world, nay more, the model to which all civilized ...

— The Spirit of American Government - A Study Of The Constitution: Its Origin, Influence And - Relation To Democracy • J. Allen Smith

... health, the greatest possible relief from the slavery of toil. On no other plan are there such promises of relief and prevention of all your sex ailings. On this plan only can you become man's equal in the hours of leisure that are his by a feeling of divine right; you also should consider the possibilities of a day of eight or ten hours as needing the reduction all the more ...

— The No Breakfast Plan and the Fasting-Cure • Edward Hooker Dewey

... daybreak we tied up to the iron wharf. As the capital of the government Boma contains the residence and gardens of the governor, who is the personal representative of Leopold, both as a shopkeeper and as a king by divine right. He is a figurehead. The real administrator is M. Vandamme, the Secretaire-General, the ubiquitous, the mysterious, whose name before you leave Southampton is in the air, of whom all men, whether they speak in French or English, speak well. It is from Boma that M. Vandamme ...

— The Congo and Coasts of Africa • Richard Harding Davis

... Scotland the decision was different. The battle fought in the Convention was exactly that which had been previously fought between Buchanan and his antagonists. 'Paterson, Archbishop of Glasgow, and Sir George Mackenzie, asserted,' says Malcolm Laing, 'the doctrine of divine right, or maintained, with more plausibility, that every illegal measure of James's government was vindicated by the declaration of the late Parliament, that he was an absolute monarch, entitled to unreserved obedience, AND ACCOUNTABLE TO NONE; while Sir ...

— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller

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