Estonian

Noun

kuningas ‎(genitive kuninga, partitive kuningat)

1. king
2. king (chess)

Declension

Finnish

Etymology

From Proto-Finnic *kuningas, borrowed from Proto-Germanic *kuningaz. As Finnish seems to be a very conservative language (i.e., it usually retains the basic structure of the language it had borrowed from), the Finnish word very nearly preserved the nominative singular case maker reconstructed for Proto-Germanic masculine a-stems. Furthermore, the *-az ending corresponds exactly to the *-os ending reconstructable for Proto-Indo-European masculine o-stems, as PIE short a and o fell together in Germanic and Verner's law voices /s/ in this position.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈkuniŋːɑs/
• Hyphenation: ku‧nin‧gas

Noun

kuningas

1. king
   • 1967, Helge Pohjolan-Pirhonen, Kansakunnan Historia, volume 2: “Kansakunta etsii itseään: 1772–1808” (W. Söderström), page 70

     Tällainen epämiellyttävien totuuksien lausuja alkoi käydä epämukavaksi kuninkaan palvontaan omistautuneessa hovimaailmassa.

     This kind of utterer of unpleasant truths started to become inconvenient for a court devoted to basileiolatry.

2. (chess, card games) king

   patakuningas = king of spades

Declension

Note also the literary genitive plural form kuningasten.

Synonyms

• kunkku
• (in games): kurko

Derived terms

• kuningatar
• kuninkaallinen

Compounds

See also

• korttipakka