An interregnum (plural interregna or interregnums) is a period of discontinuity or ""gap"" in a government, organization, or social order. Archetypally, it was the period of time between the reign of one monarch and the next (coming from Latin inter-, ""between"" + r?gnum, ""reign""), and the concepts of interregnum and regency therefore overlap. Examples of interregna are periods between monarchs, between popes, between emperors of the Holy Roman Empire, between kings in an elective monarchy, or between consuls of the Roman Republic.