dethrone

present singular third person dethrones · participle present dethroning · participle past dethroned · past dethroned

1. To depose; to forcibly relieve a monarch of the monarchy.

   And if it is a despot you would dethrone, see first that his throne erected within you is destroyed.

   1923, Kahlil Gibran, “On Freedom”, in The Prophet, New York: Knopf, pages 55–56

   3 more examples

   […] he (the said Pope) doth not onely claime to be spirituall head of all Christians, but also to haue an Imperiall Ciuill power ouer all Kings and Emperours, dethroning and decrowning princes with his foote, as pleaseth him […]

   1607, A Large Examination Taken at Lambeth […] of M. G. Blakwell, London, page 34

   Thou, Goddess-Mother, with our Sire comply, / Nor break the sacred Union of the Sky: / Lest, rouz’d to Rage, he shake the blest Abodes, / Launch the red Lightning, and dethrone the Gods.

   1715, Homer, “Book I”, in Alexander Pope, transl., The Iliad of Homer, volume I, London: […] W[illiam] Bowyer, for Bernard Lintott […], →OCLC, page 35, lines 746-749

   Each card had a great stain in the middle of its back, produced by the touch of generations of damp and excited thumbs now fleshless in the grave; and the kings and queens wore a decayed expression of feature, as if they were rather an impecunious dethroned race of monarchs hiding in obscure slums than real regal characters.

   1886 May – 1887 April, Thomas Hardy, chapter X, in The Woodlanders […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London; New York, N.Y.: Macmillan and Co., published 1887, →OCLC

   Synonyms: depose, discrown, disenthrone, uncrown, unking, unmonarch, unqueen, unsceptre · Antonyms: coronate, crown, enthrone, king, queen

2. To remove any governing authority from power.

   […] demands by Sakharov and others for further change—notably the dethroning of the increasingly discredited Party from its privileged position—could not be swept aside […]

   2005, Tony Judt, Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945, Penguin, Part 2, Chapter 19, p. 600

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   Not only where the chief magistrate enters into measures, in themselves, extremely pernicious to the public, but even when he wou’d encroach on the other parts of the constitution, and extend his power beyond the legal bounds, it is allowable to resist and dethrone him;

   1740, David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, London: John Noon, Volume 3, Part 2, Section 10, p. 183

   Synonyms: bring down, depose, divest, overthrow · Antonyms: empower, install, invest, take office

3. To remove from any position of high status or power.

   “[…] I’m a dethroned elder child, remember. My temper isn’t so damned long as you sometimes think!”

   1954, Peter De Vries, chapter 6, in The Tunnel of Love, Boston: Little, Brown, page 53

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   1753, Arthur Murphy, The Gray’s Inn Journal, No. 23, 24 March, 1753, Volume 1, London: P. Vaillant, 1756, p. 168, […] we conclude, sincerely wishing, that you may continue to display your usual Graces of Elocution, and admirable Powers of Action, untill Harlequin shall dethrone the great Shakespear, or Pierot usurp the Seat of Johnson.

   My socialist posturing was also a way of social climbing, since I always included my father among the capitalists I was determined to dethrone, whereas he was just a small entrepreneur.

   1988, Edmund White, chapter 1, in The Beautiful Room Is Empty, New York: Ballantine, page 17

4. figurativelyTo remove (something) from a position of power or paramount importance.

   So I am to dethrone my Intellect and set Emotion in its place. Is that it?

   1972, Robertson Davies, The Manticore, Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, published 2015, Part 2, Chapter 2

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   All that was Good and Holy, is dethron’d, / And Lust, and Rapine are for justice own’d.

   1672, John Dryden, The Conquest of Granada, London: Henry Herringman, act V, page 140

   To endeavour to reason love out of the world, would […] offend against common sense; but an endeavour to restrain this tumultuous passion, and to prove that it should not be allowed to dethrone superior powers, or to usurp the sceptre which the understanding should ever coolly wield, appears less wild.

   1791 (date written), Mary Wollstonecraft, “The Prevailing Opinion of a Sexual Character Discussed”, in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: With Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects, London: […] J[oseph] Johnson, […], published 1792, →OCLC, page 51

   […] I not only recognised my natural body from the mere aura and effulgence of certain of the powers that made up my spirit, but managed to compound a drug by which these powers should be dethroned from their supremacy, and a second form and countenance substituted, none the less natural to me because they were the expression, and bore the stamp, of lower elements in my soul.

   1886 January 5, Robert Louis Stevenson, “Henry Jekyll’s Full Statement of the Case”, in Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., →OCLC, page 110

   This injurious explanation dethroned the remainder of Bunson's dignity entirely.

   1913, Norman Lindsay, A Curate in Bohemia, Sydney: N.S.W. Bookstall Co., published 1932, page 111