depose
Americanverb (used with object)
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deposes,
present (3rd person singular)
-
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:
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
Take a moment in November, when we reported via well-placed sources that Sir Keir would fight any attempt to depose him.
From BBC ● Jun. 26, 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
The green card holder was deployed to Panama in 1989 as the U.S. tried to depose the nation’s de facto leader, Gen. Manuel Noriega.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 12, 2025
At the conference that December, we in the Youth League knew we had the votes to depose Dr. Xuma.
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
Our nation elected the Hapsburgs to the throne of Bohemia of its own free will, and by the same right deposes them.
From Winning a Cause World War Stories by Inez Bigwood
But her rhetoric has shifted since replacing her deposed predecessor.
From Barron's ● Aug. 5, 2026
India's efforts to rebuild ties with Bangladesh's new government are complicated by the continued presence in Delhi of deposed prime minister Sheikh Hasina, whose extradition Dhaka has sought.
From BBC ● Jul. 6, 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
Many voters had hoped the election would draw a line under years of political chaos that has seen a string of presidents jailed, deposed and impeached.
From Barron's ● Jun. 9, 2026
Of all the Communist leaders deposed in the years bracketing the collapse of the Soviet Union, only Nicolae Ceaujescu met a violent death.
From "Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything" by Steven D. Levitt
The lightning operation combined naval, air and ground forces, deposing the strongman who had led Venezuela since 2013.
From Barron's ● Jul. 22, 2026
Many call for hundreds of hours spent deposing witnesses and performing research, as well as upfront costs of tens of thousands of dollars.
From Salon ● Aug. 7, 2025
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
South Africa - the defending champions, who enacted their own Parisian revolution last weekend by deposing the hosts - have long set the sort of standards to which England coach Steve Borthwick's men aspire.
From BBC ● Oct. 21, 2023
This pope had excited a civil war in Portugal, by deposing the king Alphonso II., already interdicted by Gregory IX., and calling to the throne a count of Boulogne, brother of Alphonso.
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.
