[f. KING sb. + -HOOD.] Kingship; the rank, authority or office of king; kingly spirit or character.
c. 1350. Will. Palerne, 4059. King, i þe coniure … bi alle þe kud customes to kinghod þat longes.
c. 1380. Wyclif, Wks. (1880), 471. Crist koude ensaumple kynghod.
1440. J. Shirley, Dethe K. James (1818), 12. I am undir youre kynghood and yn the service of Love.
1656. S. H., Gold. Law, 68–9. What did any of their aforesaid Kings … for their King-hoods.
1837. Carlyle, Misc. Ess., Mirabeau (1888), V. 211. This gift was precisely the kinghood of the man, and did itself stamp him as a leader of men.
1875. Tennyson, Q. Mary, IV. i. Your father was a man Of such colossal kinghood.
