rajah

or ra·ja (räˈjə)

nounWord History: Rajah is familiar to us from the Sanskrit rājā, “king,” and mahārājā, “great king.” The Sanskrit root raj-, “to rule,” comes from the Indo-European root *reg-, “to move in a straight line, direct, rule.” The same Indo-European root appears in Italic (Latin) and Celtic. Rēx means “king” in Latin, coming from *reg-s, whence our regal and, through French, royal. Two of the Gaulish kings familiar to us from Caesar, Dumnorix and Vercingetorix, incorporate the Celtic word rīx, “king,” in their names. (Rīx also forms part of the name of that fictitious, indomitable Gaul Asterix.) Germanic at some time borrowed the Celtic word rīx. It appears as reiks, “ruler,” in Gothic, as well as in older Germanic names ending in -ric, such as Alaric and Theodoric, the latter of whom has a name that is equivalent to German Dietrich, “people's king.” A derivative of Celtic rīx, *rīg-yo-, meaning “rule, domain,” was also borrowed into Germanic, and is the source of German Reich, “rule, empire.”