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From: Ross Clark <benlizro@ihug.co.nz>
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: King and Queen
Date: Wed, 4 Jun 2025 17:53:16 +1200
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On 4/06/2025 6:19 a.m., Christian Weisgerber wrote:
> On 2025-06-03, Ross Clark <benlizro@ihug.co.nz> wrote:
> 
>> Today, by contrast, is "Queen's Birthday" in Thailand -- actual birthday
>> of the actual reigning Queen ("former air hostess"),
> 
> Hmm.  So a "reigning queen" is not a "queen regnant"?
> 

I don't know. All I meant to say was that she was in fact the current 
holder of that title. I don't profess to be an expert in things Royal, 
and "regnant" is not really even in my vocabulary. Dictionaries were not 
very helpful, simply defining "regnant" as "reigning". I thought I knew 
what "reign" meant, but I probably learned that from reading mostly 
about kings. But as helpfully explained by Blackstone (1765), quoted in 
OED, "regnant" means "holds the crown in her own right". So (I guess) 
Suthida is not regnant, does not reign.

Monarchs, then, can have spouses who do not reign. Could two people be 
co-regnant? Wiliam III and Mary II, apparently, were co-monarchs 
(1689-1694). I can't remember how that was worked out, though we heard 
about it in high school. Or how William got to be "William III and II", 
as I just read somewhere.