depose
Americanverb (used with object)
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deposes,
present (3rd person singular)
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deposed,
past participle, past
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deposing
present participle
-
to remove from office or position, especially high office.
The people deposed the dictator.
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to testify or affirm under oath, especially in a written statement.
to depose that it was true.
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Law. to take the deposition of; examine under oath.
Two lawyers deposed the witness.
verb (used without object)
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deposes,
present (3rd person singular)
-
deposed,
past participle, past
-
deposing
present participle
verb
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(tr) to remove from an office or position, esp one of power or rank
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law to testify or give (evidence, etc) on oath, esp when taken down in writing; make a deposition
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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deposesimple
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deposessimple
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have deposedperfect
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has deposedperfect
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am deposingprogressive
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are deposingprogressive
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is deposingprogressive
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have been deposingperfect progressive
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has been deposingperfect progressive
Past
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deposedsimple
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had deposedperfect
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was deposingprogressive
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were deposingprogressive
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had been deposingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of depose
First recorded in 1250–1300; Middle English deposen, from Old French deposer “to put down,” equivalent to de- de- + poser, from unattested Vulgar Latin posāre, Late Latin pausāre; see pose 1
Explanation
When you force someone in authority out of office — a politician, a king, or a cheerleading captain — you depose them. The word almost always associated with an act of deposition is coup, meaning a sudden act of overthrowing of the government. Sometimes bloodless, more often not. On a less dramatic scale, lawyers depose less exalted folk every day; it means they take evidence from them under oath, possibly to be used in a court case later. Often those giving evidence (mobsters, murderers, financial scammers, etc,) are unwilling to talk to lawyers, hence the suggestion of a stripping away of power and dignity implicit in the term depose.
Vocabulary lists containing depose
The Vocabulary.com Top 1000
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In the Time of the Butterflies
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President Obama's Speech at the United Nations
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
“We want to depose their experts and probe and test their experts’ opinions,” he said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 25, 2026
Pitt’s legal team previously attempted to depose Stoli executive Alexey Oliynik in 2025, claiming that he had relevant information pertaining to the Jolie deal.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 6, 2026
Sadie Weldon, a private citizen, sought to depose the Lilith Fund’s deputy director using a special Texas mechanism called a 202 petition that allows people to investigate a potential claim before filing suit.
From Slate ● Jan. 16, 2026
Bush sent troops in 1989 to depose and arrest the president of Panama, Manuel Noriega.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 4, 2025
Sabata was opposed to the Bantu Authorities and would not capitulate, but my visitors were afraid that Matanzima would depose him, which is eventually what happened.
From "Long Walk to Freedom" by Nelson Mandela
One night, after shooting wrapped for the day, Ruffalo went home to prepare for a big scene in which Bilott deposes DuPont’s CEO.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 29, 2019
“There was no one I could tell that I had been wounded, that I had a concussion,” one woman deposes.
From New York Times ● Jul. 25, 2017
As Hagopian writes, “ESSA deposes one of the cruelest aspects of the test-and-punish policy under NCLB: the so-called ‘Adequate Yearly Progress’ annual test score improvement requirement that labeled nearly every American school failing.”
From Salon ● Jan. 9, 2016
Three months of missed targets, and the catfish deposes the leaders he or she has been shadowing.
From BBC ● Oct. 22, 2013
Now, the following year, 1439, the Council of Basel deposes Eugenius IV, and substitutes for him Felix V, with obligation to everyone, under penalty of anathema, to reject the first and submit to the second.
From The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 by Rossiter Johnson
The tablet records a royal grant and indicates that Tiglath-pileser probably ruled from roughly 763-762 BCE before eventually being deposed.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 26, 2026
The Energy Department agreed to formal stipulations in exchange for the plaintiffs forgoing the discovery process, which likely would have meant officials would be deposed.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 5, 2026
We’ve reported how deposed Commissioner Marty Makary and his biologics chief Vinay Prasad shifted standards for approving the treatment.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 19, 2026
Its other key ally, Bashar al Assad had been deposed as president of Syria and fled to Moscow.
From BBC ● Jun. 9, 2026
"No, this was Aerys the First. The one Robert deposed was the second of that name."
From "A Clash of Kings" by George R.R. Martin
Myanmar leader Min Aung Hlaing -- who ordered the coup deposing Suu Kyi and now serves as civilian president -- on Thursday said she would serve the remainder of her sentence at a "designated residence".
From Barron's ● Apr. 30, 2026
Back in the 9th District, once Ross stepped aside and let her critics take the microphone to make the case for deposing her, they lost steam.
From Slate ● May 6, 2024
Court records show that the agency disagreed with deposing Sessions and Nielsen on the grounds of the apex deposition doctrine, which serves to protect high-ranking officials from having to testify.
From Salon ● Sep. 27, 2023
After deposing Gabonese President Ali Bongo, Gen Brice Oligui Nguema was carried through the streets by his triumphant troops, who chanted "Oligui, président! Oligui, président!"
From BBC ● Aug. 31, 2023
The parliament had a publication of an Italian Jesuit, Santarelli, burned, which ascribed to the pope the right of deposing kings, condemning them to temporal punishments and loosing their subjects from their oath of allegiance.
From The Power Of The Popes by Pierre Claude Fran?ois Daunou
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
