unsceptre

present singular third person unsceptres · participle present unsceptring · participle past unsceptred · past unsceptred · alternative unscepter

1. To deprive of a sceptre; to deprive of the status of monarch or of authority.

   Ye hate, shall hatred then unsceptre Zeus, / Or anger empty any throne in heaven?

   1870, John Leicester Warren, “Pandora”, in Rehearsals, London: Strahan, page 23

   3 more examples

   It is the cuſtome for their Kings to inherite, the ſonne alvvayes taking the Kingdome after his fathers death. If there be no ſonne, then the Queene rules; if no Queene, the next to the blood-royall, vvho comes in othervvise, is but counted an uſurping intruder, and if his faire carriage beare him not out the better, they vvill ſoone unſcepter him.

   1634, William Wood, “Of Their Kings Government, and Subjects Obedience”, in New Englands Prospect. A True, Lively, and Experimentall Description of that Part of America, Commonly Called New England; […], London: […] Tho[mas] Cotes, for Iohn Bellamie, […], →OCLC, 2nd part (Of the Indians, […]), page 79

   Upon the sodden ground / His [the god Saturn’s] old right hand lay nerveless, listless, dead, / Unsceptred; and his realmless eyes were closed; […]

   1818–1819, John Keats, “Hyperion, a Fragment”, in Lamia, Isabella, the Eve of St. Agnes, and Other Poems, London: […] [Thomas Davison] for Taylor and Hessey, […], published 1820, →OCLC, page 146

   I can make kings and unsceptre them, / Yet cannot give my heart to whom I choose.

   1967, John Cairncross (translator), Berenice by Jean Racine, Act 3, Scene 1, in Andromache and Other Plays, Penguin, 1982, p. 255

   Synonyms: decrown, depose, descepter, dethrone, discrown, disenthrone, dissceptre, uncrown