dethrone

Verb

dethrone (third-person singular simple present dethrones, present participle dethroning, simple past and past participle dethroned)

1. To depose; to forcibly relieve a monarch of the monarchy.
   • […] 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

   Synonyms:

   depose, discrown, disenthrone, uncrown, unking, unmonarch, unqueen, unsceptre, unthrone

   Antonyms:

   coronate, crown, enthrone, king, queen

2. To remove any governing authority from power.
   • 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
   • […] 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

   Synonyms:

   bring down, depose, divest, overthrow

   Antonyms:

   empower, install, invest, take office

3. To remove from any position of high status or power.
   • […] 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.1753, Arthur Murphy, The Gray’s Inn Journal, No. 23, 24 March, 1753, Volume 1, London: P. Vaillant, 1756, p. 168
   • “[…] 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
4. (figuratively) To remove (something) from a position of power or paramount importance.
   • 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...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...