主权
zhǔquán · HSK 7
ascendency
👑 主 master/lord + 权 power/authority = supreme ruling power = sovereignty
主 is the master or lord; 权 is power or authority. The master's authority over a realm is sovereignty — the supreme right to rule. Same 权 appears in 权力 (power) and 人权 (human rights).
主 — flame/lamp on top of a stand 王
Originally a pictograph of a lamp with a flame on top of its stand, representing the lord or master of the household who tended the fire. The meaning extended from 'lamp/host' to 'master, owner, main, principal'. The character 炷 (wick) preserves the original 'lamp' sense.
权 — wood 木 + 雚 (heron, phonetic)
Originally a phono-semantic compound: 木 (tree/wood) gives the meaning, while 雚 supplies the sound 'quan'. The early sense referred to a specific tree, then shifted to mean a weight used on a steelyard balance. From 'weight' it extended metaphorically to 'authority' and 'power', the dominant modern meaning.