Meaning & use
divine right
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Meanings
noununcountablespecialist
The belief that a monarch gets the right to rule directly from God and so cannot be lawfully challenged by the people or by parliament.
Grammar: Uncountable, often with of kings: the divine right of kings.
Patterns
- the divine right of kings
- claim divine right
King James I wrote about the divine right of kings to defend his authority.
Many Europeans once accepted divine right as the basis of royal power.
The idea of divine right lost ground after the English Civil War.
nounsingularfigurativehumorous
An attitude that some person or group has an unquestionable right to power or privilege, as if granted by a higher authority.
Grammar: Often used with a possessive or in a mocking way: he acts as if he had a divine right to win.
Patterns
- a divine right to something
He behaves as if he has a divine right to the best seat.
The company seemed to think it had a divine right to the market.
Nobody has a divine right to be successful without effort.
Common combinations
- divine right of kings
- The divine right of kings was challenged during the seventeenth century.
- claim divine right
- Some rulers claimed divine right to silence critics.
- doctrine of divine right
- The doctrine of divine right gave monarchs great power.
- reject divine right
- Parliament rejected divine right and limited the crown.
- belief in divine right
- Belief in divine right declined over time.
Synonyms and how they differ
- absolutism
- Absolutism describes a system of unlimited royal power, whereas divine right is the religious justification for it.
- entitlement
- Entitlement is everyday language for feeling you deserve something, with no religious link at all.
- royal prerogative
- Royal prerogative means specific legal powers of the crown and does not imply they come from God.
Opposites
Word family
Commonly confused: divine right or divine right vs. human rights?
divine right vs divine right vs. human rights
Human rights belong to all people by virtue of being human, while divine right was a claim made by rulers for themselves.
Practice
What did supporters of the divine right of kings believe?
Choose one answer.
Divine right meant power was believed to come from God. Election and obedience to parliament are the opposite idea.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “divine right”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.