- 1
The power one country or ruler has over another country that still runs its own daily affairs. This is the useful thing about the word: it names a middle position. The weaker country is not swallowed up — it keeps its own king, its own laws, its own name on the map — but it must obey the stronger one in the big things, usually foreign policy and war, and often it pays money or sends gifts. The stronger country is the suzerain; the weaker one is a vassal state. You will meet this word mostly in history books and in arguments about law and borders: old empires ran on suzerainty, and even today two governments may argue about whether some past relationship was suzerainty (we only guided them) or sovereignty (we owned them) — the choice of word decides who has a claim now. Very formal, written more than spoken. Say it SOO-zuh-rin-tee.
宗主權（強國對屬國的支配權）；那個強國叫「宗主國」，弱的一方是「藩屬國／附庸國」。注意跟「主權」(sovereignty) 分開：宗主權是管得到、但沒吞掉。
組成suzerain (the over-lord, the country on top) + -ty (a suffix that turns a person or a quality into the thing itself — the state of being that). English took suzerain from French, which built it on a word meaning 'above', shaped to look like 'sovereign'.
同家族的字
- suzerainthe same word without -ty — the overlord himself, rather than his power
- sovereignty-ty doing the same job on a different root: the state of being sovereign, full self-rule
- loyaltyanother -ty word: the state of being loyal
原始詞典資料3 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，原文照列，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
suzeraintynoun/ˈs(j)uz(ə)ɹənti/
- 1
A relation between states in which a subservient nation has its own government, but is unable to take international action independent of the superior state.
- under suzerainty to
- There were therefore, in the cultivating communities of the German and Scandinavian races, causes at work which were leading to inequality of property in land. There were causes at work which were leading to the establishment of superiorities and suzerainties of one township over another. There were causes at work which tended to place the benefits of an unequal proprietary system and the enjoyment of these suzerainties in the hands of particular families, and consequently of their chiefs for the time being.
- 2
A similar relationship between other entities.
- She was tired of living under suzerainty to her parents.
- 3
The status or power of a suzerain.
- In the N-Town Passion Play I, Lucifer is an implied presenter of the play and an implied controller of its events. He addresses the audience directly and confidentially in an extraordinary 124-line adoxograph which is part social satire and part seriocomic plea for our commitment to his suzerainty […]
資料來源：英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary（CC BY-SA 4.0）。 原文照列，未經改寫。