means A supreme ruler or the highest authority — a king, queen, or governing power that holds final say; as an adjective, it describes something fully independent and self-governing, like a sovereign nation.

from From Old French 'soverain' and ultimately Latin 'superanus' — 'chief, principal' — built on 'super,' meaning 'above.' So at its root, the sovereign is simply the one who sits over everything. The unexpected 'g' in the English spelling is a charming mistake: scribes wrongly assumed a link to 'reign' and slipped the letter in, even though 'reign' (from Latin 'regnum') is a different family entirely. The word also became the name of an English gold coin, the sovereign, because it once bore the image of the enthroned ruler.