interregnum

Borrowed from Latin interrēgnum.

• (US) IPA^(key): /ˌɪntəɹˈɹɛɡnəm/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Audio (General American):

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interregnum (plural interregnums or interregna)

1. The period of time between the end of a sovereign or political leader's reign and the accession of another.

   The Sasanian Interregnum of 628–632

   • 1897, Edward Bellamy, Equality, Chapter 15:

     It was not till the kings had been shorn of power and the interregnum of sham democracy had set in, leaving no virile force in the state or the world to resist the money power, that the opportunity for a world-wide plutocratic despotism arrived.

   • 2025 January 10, Peter Thiel, “A time for truth and reconciliation”, in Financial Times‎^[1]:

     Darker questions still emerge in these dusky final weeks of our interregnum.

   • 2025 January 30, Linda Feldmann, “Understanding the Trump chaos: It’s about wielding executive power”, in The Christian Science Monitor:

     Another element leading to the quick-out-of-the-gate second Trump term took place during the four-year interregnum of President Joe Biden.

2. (politics) A period of time during which normal executive leadership is suspended or interrupted.
3. (by extension) An intermission in any order of succession; any breach of continuity in action or influence.
   • 1831, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XV, in Romance and Reality. […], volume II, London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, page 224:

     Is it not Pelham who wonders what becomes of servants when they are not wanted;—whether, like the tones of an instrument, they exist but when called for? About servants we will not decide; but that some such interregnum certainly occurs in female existence on rising from table, no one can doubt who ever noted the sound of the dining and the silence of the drawing-room.

   • 1835, William Gilmore Simms, The Partisan, Harper, Chapter XIV, page 179:

     This was in that strange pause of the storm which is its most remarkable feature in the South—that singular interregnum of the winds, when, after giving repeated notice of their most terrific action, they seem almost to forget their purpose, and for a few moments appear to slumber in their inactivity.

   • 1946 May and June, Cecil J. Allen, “British Locomotive Practice and Performance”, in Railway Magazine, page 146:

     Between the end of the Fowler régime in 1931 and the advent of Stanier in 1932, there was a short interregnum during which Ernest Lemon was in charge, with Ernest Beames as his principal aide-de-camp.

   • 1995, Nick Hornby, High Fidelity, London: Victor Gollancz, →ISBN, page 17:

     All I know is that you could, if you wanted to, find the answers to all sorts of difficult questions buried in that terrible war-torn interregnum between the first pubic hair and the first soiled Durex.

• (breach of continuity in action): hiatus, moratorium, recess; see also Thesaurus:pause

• interregnal

• regency

• “interregnum”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “interregnum”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.

Borrowed from Latin interrēgnum.

• IPA^(key): /ˌɪn.təˈrɛɣ.nʏm/

• Audio:

  (file)

interregnum n (plural interregna or interregnums, diminutive interregnumpje n)

1. interregnum

• →? Indonesian: interegnum (or directly from the Latin)

From inter- (“between”) +‎ rēgnum (“reign”), corresponding to interrēx.

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [ɪn.tɛrˈreːŋ.nũː]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [in̪.t̪erˈrɛɲ.ɲum]

interrēgnum n (genitive interrēgnī); second declension

1. interregnum

Second-declension noun (neuter).

• → Catalan: interregne
• → Dutch: interregnum
  • →? Indonesian: interegnum (or directly from the Latin)
• → English: interregnum
• → French: interrègne
  • → English: interreign
• → German: Interregnum
• → Italian: interregno
• → Norwegian Bokmål: interregno
• → Portuguese: interregno
• → Romanian: interregn
• → Spanish: interregno

• “interregnum”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “interregnum”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• "interregnum", in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• Carl Meißner, Henry William Auden (1894) Latin Phrase-Book‎^[2], London: Macmillan and Co.
  • things seem tending towards an interregnum: res fluit ad interregnum
    
  • an interregnum ensues: res ad interregnum venit or adducitur
    
• “interregnum”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper’s Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers

interregnum n (definite singular interregnumet or interregnet, indefinite plural interregna or interregner, definite plural interregnaene or interregna or interregnene)

1. an interregnum

interregnum n (definite singular interregnumet, indefinite plural interregnum, definite plural interregnuma)

1. an interregnum

Learned borrowing from Latin interrēgnum.

• IPA^(key): /in.tɛrˈrɛɡ.num/
• Rhymes: -ɛɡnum
• Syllabification: in‧ter‧reg‧num

interregnum n

1. interregnum (period of time between the end of a sovereign's reign and the accession of another sovereign)

   Synonyms: bezkrólewie, międzykrólewie

2. interregnum (period of time during which normal executive leadership is suspended or interrupted)

   Synonym: bezkrólewie

3. (Ancient Rome, historical) interregnum (period of time between consuls' terms of office)

• interregnum in Wielki słownik języka polskiego, Instytut Języka Polskiego PAN
• interregnum in Polish dictionaries at PWN
• interregnum in PWN's encyclopedia