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Divine right of kings   /dɪvˈaɪn raɪt əv kɪŋz/   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.





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Divine right of kings" Quotes from Famous Books



... clear, and especially if they can be conveyed in the form of the phrase, their influence cannot wholly be ignored. Some we have already referred to. The doctrine that might makes right, the conception of state as supreme, the belief in the divine right of kings, the belief in the ordained rights of aristocracy, belief in militarism as a social institution, the doctrine that life may be controlled by reason, all intellectual pessimism, skepticism, any form of concept-worship, whether Hegelian or ...
— The Psychology of Nations - A Contribution to the Philosophy of History • G.E. Partridge
... and puzzled many readers of a poem otherwise clearly and continuously argued. In future editions of The Traveller, Goldsmith's original couplet should be restored; and I urge this (let the Tory reader be assured) not from any ill-will towards our old friend the Divine Right of Kings, but solely in the sacred name ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the Divine Right of Kings, and the Inheritances of Princes in the Moon, met with a terrible Shock, and that by the Solunarian Party themselves; and insomuch that even my Philosopher, and he was none of the Jure Divino Men, ...
— The Consolidator • Daniel Defoe
... time of Scotland's rest and joy was short indeed. Ere the sixteenth century opened, the ecclesiastical edifice, raised by Knox, the Melvilles and other reformers, was almost in ruins. The monarch had been taught in his youth the doctrine of the divine right of kings, and he was now determined to assert it. Both church and state must be laid in the dust before his absolute will. Both had been delivered from a popedom on the banks of the Tiber, now they will be confronted by a popedom on the banks of the Thames; and the despotism ...
— The Covenants And The Covenanters - Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation • Various


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