Depose

//diˈpoʊz// verb

verb ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    To put down; to lay down; to deposit; to lay aside; to put away. literally, transitive

    "additional mud deposed upon it"

  2. 2
    make a deposition; declare under oath wordnet
  3. 3
    To remove (a leader) from (high) office without killing (them). transitive

    "A deposed monarch may go into exile as pretender to the lost throne, hoping to be restored in a subsequent revolution."

  4. 4
    force to leave (an office) wordnet
  5. 5
    To give evidence or testimony, especially in response to interrogation during a deposition. intransitive
Show 3 more definitions
  1. 6
    To interrogate and elicit testimony from during a deposition, typically by a lawyer. transitive

    "After we deposed the claimant we had enough evidence to avoid a trial."

  2. 7
    To take or swear an oath. intransitive
  3. 8
    To testify; to bear witness; to claim; to assert; to affirm.

    "to depose the yearly rent or valuation of lands"

Synonyms

All synonyms
declaredeponeswearacknowledgeaffirmallege

Example

More examples

"Often the people do not wish to depose a tyrant, often they cannot not."

Etymology

Recorded since c.1300, from Middle English, from Old French deposer, from de- (“down”) + poser (“to put, place”). Deposition (1494 in the legal sense) belongs to deposit, but that related word and depose became thoroughly confused.

Related phrases

bear witnessdepositio de bene esselay down

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.