defenestration

noun

de·​fen·​es·​tra·​tion (ˌ)dē-ˌfe-nə-ˈstrā-shən 

1

: a throwing of a person or thing out of a window

assassination by defenestration

2

: a usually swift dismissal or expulsion (as from a political party or office)

the defenestration of political leaders

the mass defenestration of middle management

—Jane Bryant Quinn

defenestrate

(ˌ)dē-ˈfe-nə-ˌstrāt 

transitive verb

Did you know?

These days, defenestration—from the Latin fenestra, meaning "window"—is often used to describe the forceful removal of someone from public office or from some other advantageous position. History's most famous defenestration, however, was one in which the tossing out the window was quite literal. On May 23, 1618, two imperial regents were found guilty of violating certain guarantees of religious freedom and were thrown out the window of Prague Castle. The men survived the 50-foot tumble into the moat, but the incident marked the beginning of the Bohemian resistance to Hapsburg rule that eventually led to the Thirty Years' War and came to be known as the Defenestration of Prague. It was, in fact, the third such historical defenestration in Prague, but it was the first to be referred to as such by English speakers.

Examples of defenestration in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Two years later Benito Mussolini would march on Rome, but not before the former convinced the later to step down from electoral politics, which required a combination of bribery and defenestration (the poet enjoyed the first and survived the second). —Ed Simon june 23, Literary Hub, 23 June 2025

Other defenestrations have taken out Boris Epshteyn, Brian Hook, and William McGinley, who had been expected to be White House counsel. —Tevi Troy, Washington Examiner - Political News and Conservative Analysis About Congress, the President, and the Federal Government, 21 Feb. 2025

But this defenestration was not the end of Hu’s story. —Foreign Affairs, 1 Jan. 2025

Four former Intel directors advocated this route in a Fortune op-ed just weeks before Gelsinger’s defenestration. —David Meyer, Fortune, 4 Dec. 2024

Word History

Etymology

de- + Latin fenestra window

First Known Use

1619, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Rhymes for defenestration

• abbreviation
• abomination
• acceleration
• accentuation
• accommodation
• accreditation
• acculturation
• accumulation
• acetylation
• adjudication
• administration
• adulteration

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