Enthronen

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. to officially elevate an individual to a throne or leadership role of power to ceremonially recognize someone in a position of authority to install a person in a dominant and ruling capacity with reverence
2. To ceremonially place a person on a throne as a symbol of their new ruling authority
3. To formally raise someone to the status of sovereign or monarch through a public ritual

Etymology: "Enthronen" is the German verb meaning to install someone as king or queen, or to seat a monarch on the throne. It is built from "en-", a prefix meaning "in" or "into", and "Thron", the German word for throne. Literally, it means "to put into the throne," which makes the ceremony of enthronement a physical act of seating someone in the royal chair. The word's roots reach back to ancient Greek, where "thronos" meant a seat or chair of honor, and later Latin borrowed it as "thronus." German took the Greek-derived term into its own vocabulary through ecclesiastical and courtly usage, and the verb formed from it follows ordinary German patterns for building verbs out of nouns. English has a close relative in "enthrone," which entered the language in the late Middle Ages and has the same literal sense of setting someone on a throne.

Synonyms: crown, install, enthrone, invest, ascend