- royal (adj.)
- mid-13c., from Old French roial, from Latin regalis, from rex (genitive regis) "king" (see rex). Battle royal (1670s) preserves the French custom of putting the adjective after the noun (cf. attorney general); the sense of the adjective here is "on a grand scale" (cf. pair-royal "three of a kind in cards or dice," c.1600). As a modifier meaning "thorough, total" royal is attested in English from 1940s. The Royal Oak was a tree in Boscobel in Shropshire in which Charles II hid himself during flight after the Battle of Worcester in 1651. Sprigs of oak were worn to commemorate his restoration in 1660.