regal

re·gal/ˈɹiːɡəl/adjective, noun

regal is an adjective meaning “Of, pertaining to, or suitable for royalty” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled R-E-G-A-L and has 2 syllables (re·gal), and it appears 2.2 times per million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data).

What does regal mean?

adjective

1
Of, pertaining to, or suitable for royalty.
regal authority
2
Befitting a monarch.
3
Befitting a king or emperor.

noun

1
A small, portable organ whose sound is produced by brass beating reeds without amplifying resonators. Its tone is keen and rich in harmonics. The regal was common in the 16th and 17th centuries, and has been revived for the performance of music from those times.
2
An organ stop of the reed family, furnished with a normal beating reed, but whose resonator is a fraction of its natural length. In the 16th and 17th centuries these stops took a multitude of forms. Today only one survives that is of universal currency, the so-called vox humana.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you pronounce regal?

/ˈɹiːɡəl/

Regal has 2 syllables, split re·gal in writing.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-regal.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of regal

more regal comparative
most regal superlative
regals plural
rigole

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How common is regal?

Regal appears 2.2 times per million words in written English, the 18,537th most frequent word form in the list.

regal0.0010.010.11101001,00010,000

rarerper million words of written Englishmore common

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

Regal in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

Language	Words
French	régalien (of or having to do with royalty), régale (small, portable organ)
German	königlich, majestätisch (of or having to do with royalty), Regal (small, portable organ)
Portuguese	régio, real (of or having to do with royalty)
Spanish	real, regio, realengo (of or having to do with royalty), regal, órgano de regalía (small, portable organ)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does regal come from?

From Middle English regal, from Old French regal (“regal, royal”), from Latin rēgālis (“royal, kingly”), from rex (“king”); also regere (“to rule”). Doublet of royal (“belonging to a monarch”), real (“unit of currency”), ariary, and riyal. Cognate with Spanish real, Italian reale, Catalan reial.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).