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Word of the Day Archive
Sunday October 15, 2000
interregnum \in-tuhr-REG-nuhm\, noun;
plural interregnums \-nuhmz\ or interregna \-nuh\:
1. The interval between two reigns; any period when a state is left without a ruler.
2. A period of freedom from authority or during which government functions are suspended.
3. Any breach of continuity in an order; a lapse or interval in a continuity.
Forewarned by his equations that the Galactic Empire is about to collapse, Seldon hopes to shorten the inevitable interregnum from a predicted 30,000 years of bloody anarchy to a mere thousand.
-- Gerald Jonas, review of Foundation's Fear, by Gregory Benford, New York Times, April 6, 1997
They were at the moment enjoying a sort of interregnum from Roman authority.
-- Frederic William Farrar, Life of St. Paul
Architecture Culture presents 74 essays, speeches and magazine articles from the postwar era, a period Ms. Ockman describes as an interregnum between modernism and post-modernism.
-- Herbert Muschamp, "The Creative Ferment Behind the Glass Boxes", New York Times, June 13, 1993
Interregnum is from the Latin, from inter, "between" + regnum, "dominion, reign, rule," from rex, "king."
Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for interregnum
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