Kingdom: A Realm, and a Rank in Biology
A kingdom is a country ruled by a monarch. Biology borrowed the word for the largest divisions of living things.
A kingdom is a state ruled by a king or queen. Biology took the word for its broadest categories — animals, plants, fungi and others — because in the eighteenth century a kingdom was the natural word for the largest possible domain. The number of biological kingdoms has changed several times since.
- A country ruled by a monarch. *The kingdom of Bhutan.*
- A major division of living things. *The animal kingdom.*
- An area of activity. *The kingdom of the imagination.*
Word forms
| Form | Word | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Noun | kingdom | A small kingdom. |
| Plural | kingdoms | Rival kingdoms. |
| Related | king | The king abdicated. |
| Related | realm | Within the realm. |
| Related | monarchy | A constitutional monarchy. |
How it is used in a sentence
- The United Kingdom is made up of four countries.A political name.
- Fungi were moved out of the plant kingdom.They are more closely related to animals.
- He ruled his kitchen like a small kingdom.Figurative.
The ranks of classification
- Domain — the broadest rank, added in the 1990s
- Kingdom — animals, plants, fungi and more
- Phylum — major body plans within a kingdom
- Class, order, family — successively narrower
- Genus and species — the two names in a scientific name
From Old English *cyningdom*, from *cyning*, king, plus *-dom*, the ending for a state or domain, as in *freedom* and *wisdom*.
How many biological kingdoms are there?
It depends on the scheme. Five was standard for decades; modern classifications often use six or seven, grouped under three domains.
Kingdom or realm?
Realm is the more formal and literary word, and in British constitutional language it covers all the territories of the Crown.