regal

Etymology 1

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”) and real (“unit of currency”). Cognate with Spanish real.

adj

1. Of or relating to royalty.
   regal authority
   the regal title
2. Befitting a king, queen, emperor, or empress.
   The [Washington] Posts proprietor through those turbulent [Watergate] days, Katharine Graham, held a double place in Washington’s hierarchy: at once regal' Georgetown hostess and scrappy newshound, ready to hold the establishment to account. 2013-08-10, Lexington, “Keeping the mighty honest”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8848
   Terrific movement from The Queen here. Gets behind the defender, goes one way then cuts back inside. Regal attacking play. 2018-07-14, Gary Lineker, Twitter, retrieved 2018-07-15
   Kwarteng said he had urged Truss to “slow down” over reforms, but a cabinet minister told the FT that she felt “invincible, almost regal”. 2022-12-10, Harry Taylor, “Liz Truss and I ‘got carried away’ writing mini-budget, admits Kwasi Kwarteng”, in The Guardian
3. Befitting a king, or emperor.
   The children to whom I acted as cicerone almost screamed with glee as they saw the four-and-twenty blackbirds emerging from the pie-crust in front of the astonished King; and when the climax of the inconsequential story was reached, by way of the regal counting house and the “reginal” parlour, and a blackbird (presumably one of the four-and-twenty that had been temporarily immured in the pie) was seen about to revenge himself on the innocent nose of the guiltless laundry-maid, a veritable climax of enthusiasm was reached. c. 1898, Truth, column 2
   The crown seals, a regal crown and a reginal crown are unengraved, but from the motif I judge they symbolize King William III of England and Queen Mary, (see 1688, English History) who formerly ruled Holland as Prince William, Consort, and Queen Mary — The House of Orange. c. 1947, Hobbies, page 27, column 1
   In any case, the discrepancy might be explained by the fact that the 9th pylon has not yet disgorged all it blocks; it is in the talatat from this pylon that the masonry of the essentially regal (as opposed to reginal) temples Tni-mnw and Rwd-mnw predominate. 1973, Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt, page 78, column 2

Etymology 2

From Middle French régale, possibly from Old French regol (“a gutter, channel”).

noun

1. (music) A small, portable organ whose sound is produced by 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. (music) 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.