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
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
Almost 1 meter in diameter, the vessel entombed a woman in her late 20s with a shining silver diadem on her forehead.
From Science Magazine ● Oct. 4, 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
“Well, there’s her lost diadem. I told you about it, remember, Harry? The lost diadem of Ravenclaw? Daddy’s trying to duplicate it.”
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
Some were jewel-encrusted diadems worn by Angkor royalty as far back as the 9th century.
From New York Times ● Feb. 20, 2023
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
This pale crescent was “the likeness of a kingly crown;” what it diademed was “the shape which shape had none.”
From Jane Eyre by Townsend, F. H.
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
Perhaps if the diademed tyrants had treated it with indifference, the effects would have been otherwise.
From An Old Sailor's Yarns by Ames, N. (Nathaniel)
Hung with millions of electric bulbs, crowned and diademed, and laced with jewels of white flame, she signaled to them out of the mystery and immensity of the night.
From The Combined Maze by Sinclair, May
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.
