disenthrone

English

Alternative forms

• disinthrone (obsolete)

Etymology

dis- +‎ enthrone

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -əʊn

Verb

1. To remove (someone) from their position as monarch; to deprive of a position of supremacy.

   Synonyms: depose, dethrone, discrown, uncrown, unking, unthrone

   • 1667, John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book 2, lines 229-230,^[1]

     […] to disinthrone the King of Heav’n / We warr […]

   • 1852, George Grote, History of Greece, London: John Murray, Volume 10, Chapter 79, p. 335,^[2]

     […] the step taken two or three months after the battle of Leuktra […] of causing the peace, which had already been sworn at Sparta in the preceding month of June, to be re-sworn under the presidency and guarantee of Athens, by cities binding themselves mutually to each other as defensive allies of Athens; thus silently disenthroning Sparta and taking her place.

   • 1914, Elia W. Peattie, The Precipice, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, Chapter 17, p. 214,^[3]

     Honora moved with a slow hauteur in her black gown, looking like a disenthroned queen, and as she walked down the train aisle Kate thought of Marie Antoinette.

   • 1974, Harrison Pope, The Road East: America’s New Discovery of Eastern Wisdom, Boston: Beacon Press, Chapter 7, p. 115,^[4]

     For many youths, magical feats represent one of the most intriguing possibilities of Eastern disciplines. They offer the hope of beating science at its own game, on its own territory. The self-cure of cancer is such a case: how satisfying it would be to disenthrone all the oncologists in a single blow!

2. To move (someone or something) from a desirable location or place of honour.
   • 1921, Constantine M. Panunzio, The Soul of an Immigrant, New York: Macmillan, Chapter 1, pp. 25-26,^[5]

     There were fruits of every kind; clusters of luscious grapes, quinces, pears, apples and pomegranates, long strings of figs, boxes of dates, and honey-dew melons sweeter than honey; all would be disenthroned from their lofty pantry dominions from which for months they had been tempting the yearning eyes of children, and placed before all to have and to hold until they could no more.

   • 1958, William Humphrey, Home from the Hill, New York: Permabooks, 1959, Chapter 42, p. 224,^[6]

     She remembered how she had so often disenthroned her father from his favorite chair for parlor dates […]

3. (figuratively) To remove (something) from a position of power or paramount importance.
   • 1844, Benjamin Disraeli, speech given at the Manchester Athenæum Grand Soirée, 3 October, 1844, in Addresses Delivered by Lord John Manners […] B. Disraeli […] G. Sydney Smythe, London: Hayward and Adam, 1845, p. 18,^[7]

     As civilization has gradually progressed it has equalised the physical qualities of man. Instead of the strong arm it is the strong head that is now the moving principle of society. You have disenthroned Force, and placed on her high seat Intelligence […]

   • 1876, George Eliot, Daniel Deronda, Book 8, Chapter 65,^[8]

     No other than these simple words were possible to her; and even these were too much for her in a state of emotion where her proud secrecy was disenthroned: as the child-like sentences fell from her lips they re-acted on her like a picture of her own helplessness, and she could not check the sob which sent the large tears to her eyes.

   • 1987, Robert C. Tucker, Political Culture and Leadership in Soviet Russia: From Lenin to Gorbachev, New York: Norton, Conclusion, p. 203,^[9]

     Marxism-Leninism will have to be disenthroned as party orthodoxy from which it is heretical to deviate […]

References

• Chambers's Etymological Dictionary, 1896, p. 130

Anagrams

• enthronised, rhinestoned