throne
Pluralthrones
Pluralthrones
Formsthrones, throning, throned
- 1An impressive chair used by a monarch, often set on a raised platform in a throne room and kept for formal occasions.
The ambassador bowed low as she approached the throne.
The queen's throne, carved from oak and inlaid with gold, stands on a dais at the end of the hall.
Note
Greek thronos could mean any chair as well as a royal one. English took the word through Latin and French, spelling it trone in Middle English, and let it push out an older native word, seld, for a seat or throne. People approach a throne or stand before it, as the great multitude does in the King James Bible of 1611.
- 2The position of leader, especially the office of a king or queen.
Two cousins fought a long civil war over the throne.
After a decade as world champion, he surrendered his throne to a rising teenage star.
Similarcrown
Note
The office is talked about as though it were still the chair: a monarch sits on or upon the throne of a country, an heir stands in line to the throne, and rival claimants contest the throne. The same figure stretches beyond royalty to any leading position, such as a reigning champion's.
- 3A polite, indirect way of referring to a toilet.
He spends far too long on the throne every morning, scrolling through his phone.
The remodeled bathroom features a heated throne with a built-in bidet.
Note
The joke lies in lending the grandeur of the royal seat to the humblest seat in the house. It turns up mostly as on the throne, said of someone using the toilet, as in Stephen King's Needful Things (1991). The tone is teasing and domestic: fine among family and friends, out of place in formal talk.
- 4The official seat of a bishop in the cathedral of his diocese, or the seat of a pope.
During the service the bishop presided from his throne beside the high altar.
As a young priest he dreamed of one day occupying the papal throne in Rome.
Similarcathedra
- 5A kind of stool that drummers use, sitting on it while they play.
Before the gig, he adjusted the height of his throne behind the kit.
A padded throne with a backrest can save a drummer's spine on a long tour.
Note
Behind a drum kit the throne is a round, padded stool on a sturdy stand, and its height adjusts for a reason: it sets the angle of the player's legs on the pedals. In catalogs and music shops it usually goes by the fuller name drum throne.
- 6In Christian tradition, a member of an order of angels ranked above dominions and below cherubim.
The poet imagines a throne, one of the angelic host, bowing just below the cherubim before God.
Medieval theologians counted the thrones among the highest ranks of angels, just beneath the cherubim.
Note
This order of angels is usually met in the plural and in a list: the King James Bible of 1611 names thrones, dominions, principalities and powers among all things created, visible and invisible. The order's name is simply the word for the royal seat turned to heavenly powers, so only the context tells a reader whether thrones are chairs or angels.
Less common meanings
- 7To place someone on a royal seat, formally making them ruler.
The bishops gathered to throne the new emperor before the high altar.
The rebels throned their own candidate in the captured palace.
Note
Present-day English enthrones a ruler; the bare verb is the older, archaic way of saying it. Used now, it gives a sentence a solemn, old-fashioned ring that suits verse or a deliberately grand style better than plain reporting, and the same goes for the verb's other uses.
- 8To set someone or something in a high place, granting it sovereignty or dominion, or exalting it above others.
Her letters throne her late husband above every living man.
True image of the Father, whether throned / In the bosom of bliss, and light of light.
1671, John Milton, “The First Book”Note
Nothing literal is sat upon here: whatever is throned is raised to honor or power, the figurative cousin of seating a ruler. Milton's Paradise Regain'd (1671) puts it in a past participle followed by in, the Father's true image throned in the bosom of bliss, and that passive shape, someone or something throned in a high place, is the natural model to follow.
- 9To sit on a throne, or to be seated or placed as if on one.
Kings throne in splendor while their people go hungry.
On the hilltop, the old castle throned above the village like a crowned head.
Note
Unlike the verb for seating a ruler, this one takes no object: the subject is the one on the throne, not the one who puts it there. In its as-if use the subject need not be a person at all, so a castle or a peak can throne above the land below it.
Showing meanings only.
Practice
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Origin
From Middle English trone, from Old French trone and Latin thronus, from Ancient Greek θρόνος (thrónos, “chair, throne”). It replaced the earlier English word seld (“seat, throne”).