A new word. New to me, anyway.
Until this year I had never heard the word coronate, as in a verb meaning to crown.
The first few times I came across it, I thought that’s ignorant – everyone knows it’s simply ‘to crown’. After encountering several more mentions, I looked it up.
It turns out I was one who was ignorant – at least in some parts of the world.
According to some dictionaries, it is legitimate.
But not all. Though Merriam-Webster is happy to acknowledge it, the Oxford English dictionary, that long-time bastion of English usage, seems less willing. One of my print editions, admittedly old now, doesn’t list it; another only as a botanical term (having a crown or corona), and an online search came back with ‘We were unable to find anything about coronate’.
Collins, it seems, has had to add it as ‘in American English’.
New usage perhaps? One source says it was first recorded c. 1623. So, 400 years. I guess that’s long enough to prove itself worthy of acceptance.
So, King Charles lll has been coronated, at least on the west side of the Atlantic, and I have been further educated.
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