prince
European title of rank, usually denoting a person exercising complete or almost complete sovereignty or a member of a royal family. The wife of a prince is a princess. In Britain, the title was not used until 1301, when Edward I invested his son, the future Edward II, as prince of Wales. From Edward III's time, the king's (or queen's) eldest son and heir has usually been so invested.
Prince
orig. Prince Rogers Nelson(born June 7, 1958, Minneapolis, Minn., U.S.) U.S. singer and songwriter. The son of a jazz pianist, he taught himself several instruments and formed his own bands as a teenager. At age 19 he released his first album, on which he played all the instruments. His second album, Prince (1979), was followed by many others, including the best-selling 1999 (1982), the soundtrack of the film Purple Rain (1983), in which he also starred, and Diamonds and Pearls (1991). In 1993 he changed his name to an unpronounceable symbol and became known as “the artist formerly known as Prince,” but in 2000 he resumed his previous name. In 2004 he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
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prince
Prince
in the ninth through the 16th century, the head of a feudal monarchichal state of a separate political formation (appanage prince) among the Slavs and some other peoples; a representative of the feudal aristocracy; later, a gentry title.
Originally, the prince was a tribal leader who headed a military democracy. Gradually, the title of prince came to be associated with the head of the early feudal state. The princely authority, which at first had usually been determined by an election, gradually became hereditary (for example, the descendants of Riurik in Rus’, Gediminas and Jagello in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Piast in Poland, and Premysl in Bohemia). In Rus’ and Lithuania princes who were the heads of the big feudal political formations were called grand princes. (However, in countries such as Poland and Bohemia, where the princes were the heads of feudal monarchies, they adopted the title of king.) With the formation of centralized states, the appanage princes gradually became part of the grand prince’s court in Russia (from 1547, the tsar’s court), and in the Polish-Lithuanian state, part of the king’s court.
Until the 18th century the title of prince in Russia could be acquired only by birthright. However, from the early 18th century the tsar bestowed the title on high dignitaries as a reward for special services. (A. D. Menshikov was the first to be granted the title of prince.) After the victory of the October Revolution the title of prince was abolished in Russia by the decree On the Abolition of Estates and Civil Ranks, which was issued by the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on Nov. 10 (23), 1917.
The German term Fürst, which took root in medieval Germany as the name for the representatives of the higher imperial aristocracy, is translated as kniaz’ (prince) in Russian.
Prince
the title of a nonreigning member of a royal house or any sovereign house in Western Europe. The prince of Wales is the title of the heir to the British throne. The term is also used to designate the heirs to the throne of certain countries of the Orient, such as Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand.
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