Other forms: thrones
A throne is the ceremonial seat a king or queen sits on for state occasions. The throne room, seated on the throne, an empty throne.
By extension the throne means the monarchy itself: come to the throne, heir to the throne, abdicate the throne. That figurative use is far commoner than the furniture. Note the power behind the throne, meaning whoever really decides while somebody else wears the crown. And the informal use of the throne for a lavatory is a small joke that has been made in English for about two hundred years.
1nounthroneThe ceremonial seat of a monarch.
“The throne is only used twice a year.”
2nounpositionThe position of monarch.
“She came to the throne at twenty-five.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
throne is a royal seat or position.
Greek thronos meant simply a seat or a chair — any seat, not a royal one. The grandeur is entirely English and Latin: Greek used the same word for the chair a doctor sat on. Enthrone and dethrone are built from it, and dethrone is far the commoner of the two.
Proto-Indo-European
*dʰer-
Middle English
trone
English, today
throne
Built from
From Middle English trone. Middle English trone, from Old French trone, from Latin thronus, from Ancient Greek θρόνος (“a seat, chair”). Superseded earlier seld (“seat, throne”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA