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# govern

«govern» in Mova's school dictionary: **to rule a country, state or group officially** — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 4 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

### part of speech

verb (govern, governs, governed, governing)

### meaning for a pupil

1) To govern is to rule a country, state or group officially. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/G/govern/#m1)

2) To govern something is to control or decide how it happens: rules govern the game. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/G/govern/#m2)

3) (formal) To control your feelings: govern your temper. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/G/govern/#m3)

### sense in the lessons

Citizenship and history lessons (who governs the country), science (laws that govern motion), games and sport (rules that govern play).

### examples

- The prime minister and parliament govern the country. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/G/govern/#x1)
- Rules govern how the game is played. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/G/govern/#x2)
- Gravity governs how planets move. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/G/govern/#x3)
- Try to govern your temper. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/G/govern/#x4)
- The queen governed for many years. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/G/govern/#x5)
- A council governs our town. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/G/govern/#x6)
- The Frogs were tired of governing themselves. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/G/govern/#x7)

### note

Nouns: government, governor. In grammar, «govern» is also used for words that control another word's form (advanced).

### In the corpora

- [The prophet Muhammad lived in Arabia about 1,400 years ago, and Islam spread quickly until Muslim rulers governed lands from Spain to India.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/22-the-islamic-golden-age-and-the-wider-medieval-world/5/)
- [New Zealand gave women the vote in 1893, before any other self-governing country.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/40-australia-and-new-zealand-a-short-story/15/)
- [Baptist churches baptise believers by full immersion and let each congregation govern itself.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/religion-ethics/28-churches-of-the-english-speaking-world-i/18/)
- [Shall even one that hateth right govern?](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/ketuvim/jps/JOB.895/)

### Trees and pragmatics

[Every meaning and example of «govern» parsed by Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/G/govern/), each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.