dynasty
Pluraldynasties
- 1A series of rulers from the same family, who hold power one after another.
The young emperor was the last of a dynasty that had ruled for three hundred years.
Royal marriages helped the great European dynasties hold on to their thrones.
Similarhouse, succession
Note
The word came through French and Late Latin from Greek dunasteía, "power, dominion", so at root a dynasty is about holding power, not just about kinship. A named dynasty puts the family or house in front with a capital: the Habsburg dynasty, the Ottoman dynasty. House is its nearest synonym; succession shifts the weight to the handing-on from one ruler to the next.
- 2A family viewed across generations, taking in its ancestors and its descendants.
She married into a banking dynasty that traced its roots back two centuries.
The portraits in the hall show five generations of the shipping dynasty.
Note
Outside palaces the word lends its grandeur to any family that holds on to a fortune or a trade across generations: a banking dynasty, a shipping dynasty, one that people marry into. Lineage traces descent and clan stresses kinship; dynasty keeps a hint of the power behind the royal meaning.
- 3A team or organization that enjoys a long period of success or dominance.
The coach turned a losing program into a dynasty that won five straight conference titles.
Every rival in the league was desperate to end the dynasty.
Similarpowerhouse
Note
A sportswriter's word for staying on top: one great season makes a champion, but only several in a row make a dynasty. The image borrows the royal house, with titles standing in for crowns, and the verbs follow from it: a coach builds a dynasty, and every rival in the league wants to end it.
- 4In East Asian history, the state or period of history under the rule of a particular ruling family.
The scroll was painted early in the Ming dynasty.
Trade with the West grew during the later dynasties, as foreign ships reached the southern ports.
Note
In East Asian history the word marks time as well as a family: a scroll or a vase is dated to the Ming dynasty much as a European one is dated by century. The era and the family often go by different names, so the Ming dynasty was the period when the Zhu family ruled China.
Practice
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Origin
Borrowed from Middle French dynastie, from Late Latin dynastia, from Ancient Greek δυναστεία (dunasteía, "power, dominion").