govern

govern, rule are comparable when they mean to exercise power or authority in controlling or directing another or others, often specifically those persons who comprise a state or nation.

Govern may imply power, whether despotic or constitutional, or authority, whether assumed by force, acquired by inheritance or through election, or granted by due processes of law, but it usually connotes as its end the keeping of the one or ones directed or controlled in a straight course or in smooth operation, where perils are avoided and the good of the individual or of the whole is achieved

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parents who cannot govern their children

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govern one's emotions

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every prince should govern as he would desire to be governed if he were a subject— Temple

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the [Roman] Senate was more than a modern constitutional monarch, reigning and not governing; it had a substantial amount of governing to its share— Buchan

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formulating the principles which should govern the creation of proletarian literature— Glicksberg

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as Matthew Arnold pointed out . . . educated mankind is governed by two passions—one the passion for pure knowledge, the other the passion for being of service or doing good— Eliot

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Rule is not always clearly distinguished from govern

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the territory is ruled by a high commissioner— Americana Annual

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Often it implies the power to lay down laws which shall determine the action of others or to issue commands which must be obeyed; it therefore commonly suggests the exercise of arbitrary power and is not ordinarily used of one that exercises authority over the people as an elected official

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resolved to ruin or to rule the state— Dryden

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the country is ruled but not governed; there is little administration and much lawlessness— Puckle

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it's damnable to have to hurt the people we love—but, after all, we can't let our parents rule our lives— Rose Macaulay

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Analogous words: *conduct, direct, control, manage: *restrain, curb, inhibit