Meaning & use
dynasty
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Meanings
nouncountable
A line of rulers who come from one family and hold power over a country for generations.
Grammar: Often named with the family or period: the Ming dynasty.
Patterns
- the something dynasty
- a dynasty of something
The Ming dynasty ruled China for nearly three hundred years.
His family founded a dynasty that governed the kingdom for generations.
The collapse of the dynasty followed years of famine.
nouncountablefigurative
A family or group that stays powerful or successful in business, politics or sport for a long time.
Grammar: Figurative and often admiring or sometimes critical: a political dynasty.
Patterns
- a dynasty of something
- build a dynasty
The family built a retail dynasty that spanned four generations.
The team's run of titles made it a sporting dynasty.
Critics complained that the town was run by a political dynasty.
Word forms
| plural | dynasties |
|---|
Common combinations
- found a dynasty
- He founded a dynasty that lasted two hundred years.
- a ruling dynasty
- The ruling dynasty faced rebellions in the north.
- a political dynasty
- The senator belongs to a political dynasty.
- the fall of a dynasty
- Historians debate the fall of the dynasty.
- a royal dynasty
- The royal dynasty traced its roots to a medieval warlord.
Synonyms and how they differ
- house
- House is shorter and used for noble families, as in the House of Windsor, while dynasty stresses the unbroken line of rulers.
- line
- Line stresses descent from parent to child but carries less sense of power than dynasty.
- regime
- A regime is a system of government and need not be hereditary, unlike a dynasty.
- empire
- Empire names the territory ruled, whereas dynasty names the family ruling it.
Word family
- dynastic adjective
- relating to a ruling family
- dynastically adverb
- in a way connected to a family line of rulers
- dynast noun
- a member of a ruling family
Commonly confused: dynasty or dynamic?
dynasty vs dynamic
Dynamic means energetic or always changing, and is not about families or rulers.
Practice
The Tang ___ ruled for almost three centuries.
Choose one answer.
A dynasty is a line of rulers from one family. Democracy is a system of government, dynamo is a generator, and dilemma is a hard choice.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “dynasty”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.