diadem
Americannoun
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a crown.
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a cloth headband, sometimes adorned with jewels, formerly worn by monarchs in Asia Minor and other parts of the East.
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royal dignity or authority.
verb (used with object)
noun
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a royal crown, esp a light jewelled circlet
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royal dignity or power
verb
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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diademsimple
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diademssimple
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have diademedperfect
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has diademedperfect
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am diademingprogressive
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are diademingprogressive
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is diademingprogressive
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have been diademingperfect progressive
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has been diademingperfect progressive
Past
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diademedsimple
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had diademedperfect
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was diademingprogressive
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were diademingprogressive
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had been diademingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of diadem
1250–1300; Middle English diademe (< Anglo-French ) < Latin diadēma < Greek diádēma fillet, band, equivalent to diadē- (verbid stem of diadeîn to bind round + -ma noun suffix
Explanation
A diadem is a crown, or something on a crown. If you’ve just won the Miss America pageant, reach up your hand — that’s right — that rhinestone encrusted circlet on your head? That’s a diadem. While diadem is a straightforward word meaning "crown," it can also refer to the jewels or other ornaments on a crown. It also sounds like diamond, which is handy for remembering the meaning, because a crown might well have diamonds on it. Or, the diadem could be the diamond on the crown. Technically, you could have a diadem on a diadem, but it would be confusing to say it that way. It comes from the Greek diadema, which was cloth tied around the head to signify royalty. Not as nice as diamonds though, really!
Vocabulary lists containing diadem
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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:
Among them are an emerald-and-diamond necklace that Napoleon I gave his second wife, Empress Marie-Louise, and a diadem that once belonged to the Empress Eugenie, which is dotted with nearly 2,000 diamonds.
From Barron's ● Nov. 1, 2025
The greenstone ornaments are typical of the Late Classic period and the mask and diadem are known to be exclusive to Maya royalty.
From Science Magazine ● Apr. 17, 2024
If you're looking at it and wondering why it seems familiar, it might be because that diadem was seen on stamps from the late Queen's reign.
From BBC ● Nov. 7, 2023
But Russian forces managed to find the room and lifted the diadem along with 1,700 other artifacts.
From Washington Post ● Nov. 4, 2022
Who could have told him where to look, when nobody had seen the diadem in living memory?
From "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" by J.K. Rowling
According to the authorities, eight items were taken including diadems, necklaces, ear-rings and brooches.
From BBC ● Oct. 19, 2025
However huge their historical and cultural value, crowns and diadems can easily be broken apart and sold in bits.
From BBC ● Oct. 19, 2025
Still, that vision of decorative femininity, complete with flowing capes and diadems, most resembles a live-action version of “Frozen” meets ”Game of Thrones.”
From New York Times ● Jul. 5, 2017
As for the people, they will get help wherever they can; prayers and spells and amulets combine ankhs, crosses, old deities, seven-point diadems, the archangel Gabriel.
From The Guardian ● Oct. 30, 2015
Beneath her fingernails, the frost makes billions of tiny diadems and coronas on the slats of the bench, a lattice of dumbfounding complexity.
From "All the Light We Cannot See" by Anthony Doerr
"This population of diademed sifakas is already in bad shape," Bonadonna said.
From Science Daily ● Apr. 19, 2024
Plenipotent, majestic night settled on the throne of the supernal cosmos, diademed with a million twinkling jewels to dazzle his mundane subjects.
From The Red Debt Echoes from Kentucky by MacDonald, Everett
This pale crescent was "the likeness of a Kingly Crown"; what it diademed was "the shape which shape had none."
From A Book of English Prose Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools by Lubbock, Percy
On her head she wore a crown diademed with finest jewels, and round about her were women like moons, seated upon chairs and clad in the most sumptuous clothing of all colours.
From The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night — Volume 09 by Burton, Richard Francis, Sir
Timour—he Whom the astonished people saw Striding o'er empires haughtily A diademed outlaw!
From Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works by Poe, Edgar Allan
When home, he dwells in a spacious, squatty, fenced-in, brownstone mansion, diademing St. Paul's exclusive Crocus Hill.
From Time Magazine Archive
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.
