Throne: a seat that carries its own story

‘The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David.’ (Luke 1:32)

This word card looks at the long history of ‘throne’, beginning with Greek ‘θρόνος’ and moving through Latin, Old French and into Middle English. I trace how a simple raised seat became a symbol of royal power and how the word settled into modern European languages with almost no change at all.

The accompanying image was taken at the Viking Museum in Stockholm. It shows a reconstructed high seat from a Norse hall, a reminder that the idea of a raised, authoritative seat is older and wider than any single culture. 

Each word card set begins with an image that captures the theme of the word. The following cards trace its story: a main word card (or two, if extended), a junior version with a paler border, an etymological breakdown showing how the word travelled through time, and a list of sources. Some sets also include cards for related words or translations across other languages. Together they show where each word came from, how it changed, and what it still carries with it.