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Concept
Fürst
Summary
Fürst (ˈfʏʁst, female form Fürstin, plural Fürsten; from Old High German furisto, "the first", a translation of the Latin princeps) is a German word for a ruler as well as a princely title. Fürsten were, starting in the Middle Ages, members of the highest nobility who ruled over states of the Holy Roman Empire and later its former territories, below the ruling Kaiser (emperor) or König (king).
A Prince of the Holy Roman Empire was the reigning sovereign ruler of an Imperial State that held imperial immediacy in the boundaries of the Holy Roman Empire. The territory ruled is referred to in German as a Fürstentum (principality), the family dynasty referred to as a Fürstenhaus (princely house), and the (non-reigning) descendants of a Fürst are titled and referred to in German as Prinz (prince) or Prinzessin (princess).
The English language uses the term "prince" for both concepts. Latin-based languages (French, Italian, Romanian, Spanish, Portuguese) also employ a single term, whereas Dutch as well as the Scandinavian and some Slavic languages use separate terms similar to those used in German (see knyaz for the latter).
An East Asian parallel to the concept of "ruling prince" would be the Sino-Xenic word 王 (pronounced wáng in Mandarin, wong4 in Cantonese, ō in Japanese, wang in Korean and vương in Vietnamese), which commonly refers to Korean and non-East-Asian "kings", but usually refers to non-imperial monarchs (who would go by 皇帝 ("emperor" or "empress regnant") instead) in ancient China and Vietnam and therefore is frequently translated to "prince", especially for those who became rulers well after to the first adoption of the title 皇帝 by Qin Shi Huang. Some examples include China's Prince Wucheng and Vietnam's Prince Hưng Đạo. On the other hand, the son of a monarch would go by different titles, such as 皇子 ("imperial son"), 親王 ("prince of the blood") or 王子 ("royal son"). A "European sovereign prince" may have the same title as a "duke", namely 公, and "principality" is translated to the same word as "duchy", namely 公国.
Official source
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