Dictionary

uncrown en · VERB

Etymology

From Middle English uncoroun, uncroun, uncrowne; equivalent to un- + crown.

Meanings

1. To deprive of the monarchy or other authority or status.
   • […] this poor fool clung to Lear after he had given away his crown, and by his witty sayings would keep up his good humour, though he could not refrain sometimes from jeering at his master for his imprudence in uncrowning himself, and giving all away to his daughters; 1807, Charles Lamb, Mary Lamb, “King Lear”, in Tales from Shakespeare, London: Thomas Hodgkins, page 199:
   • And in the reign of this king was it shown, how though God may choose a king and set him on a throne, […] yet a people is also of God, a part of God, and they may uncrown him, destroy him and cast him forth if he act unkingly. 1902, Charles Robert Ashbee, Masque of the Edwards of England, page 7:
   • Tell him from me that he hath done me wrong, And therefore I’ll uncrown him ere’t be long. c. 1591–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Third Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene iii]:
   • 1860, Walt Whitman, “Chants Democratic, 2” Stanza 19, in Leaves of Grass, Boston: Thayer and Eldridge, p. 136, I see the clear sunsets of the martyrs, I see from the scaffolds the descending ghosts, Ghosts of dead lords, uncrowned ladies, impeached ministers, rejected kings, Rivals, traitors, poisoners, disgraced chieftains, and the rest.
2. To remove a crown from (often figuratively).
   • Greedy of Spoils, th’ Italians strip the dead Of his rich Armour; and uncrown his Head. 1697, Virgil, “The Twelfth Book of the Æneis”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC, page 591, lines 448-449:
   • Go then, with Speed your laurel’d heads uncrown, And leave the silly Farce you have begun. 1717, Samuel Croxall, transl., Ovid’s Metamorphoses in Fifteen Books. Translated by the most eminent hands, London: Jacob Tonson, Book 6, p. 184:
   • When rigid Cold in Ice hath all things bound, And Forrests of their Summers pride uncrown’d. 1648, Seneca the Younger, translated by Edward Sherburne, Medea a Tragedie, London: Humphrey Moseley, act IV, scene 1, page 39:
   • How many mountains did the waves uncrown, Bouncing against them like a batt’ring Ram! 1655, Luís de Camões, translated by Richard Fanshawe, The Lusiad, London: Humphrey Moseley, Canto 6, Stanza 79, p. 132:

Forms

Relateds

uncrowned

Synonyms

dethrone · unthrone · depose · discrown · decrown · disenthrone · unking