roy

From Middle English roy, roye, borrowed from Old French roi (“king”). Doublet of rajah, Rex, rex, and rich.

roy (plural roys)

1. (obsolete, formal) A king.

• viceroy

roy

1. (obsolete) Royal.
   • 1614–1615, Homer, “The Fifth Book of Homer’s Odysseys”, in Geo[rge] Chapman, transl., Homer’s Odysses. […], London: […] Rich[ard] Field [and William Jaggard], for Nathaniell Butter, published 1615, →OCLC; republished in The Odysseys of Homer, […], volume I, London: John Russell Smith, […], 1857, →OCLC, page 114, lines 140–144:

     For in the tenth year, when roy victory / Was won to give the Greeks the spoil of Troy, / Return they did profess, but not enjoy, / Since Pallas they incens'd, and she the waves / By all the winds' power, that blew ope their graves.

     The spelling has been modernized.

• “roy”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

• RYO, ryo, ryō, yor, -ory

roy m (plural roys)

1. (pre-1800) Obsolete spelling of roi.

• “roy”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

From Old French roi, from earlier rei, from Latin rēgem.

• IPA^(key): /ˈrwɛ/

roy m (plural roys)

1. king (male ruler)

• French: roi, roy (obsolete) (pre-1800)
  • Antillean Creole: wa
  • Guianese Creole: rwè
  • Haitian Creole: wa
    • (perhaps) ⇒ Haitian Creole: lwa
      • → English: loa
  • Karipúna Creole French: hué
  • Louisiana Creole: rwa
  • Seychellois Creole: lerwa

roy oblique singular, m (oblique plural roys, nominative singular roys, nominative plural roy)

1. Alternative form of roi