Lèse-majesté
Offence against the dignity of a reigning head of state
Lèse-majesté
Lèse-majesté or lese-majesty (UK: leez MAJ-ist-ee, US: layz -; lit. 'injured majesty') is an offence or defamation against the dignity of a ruling head of state (traditionally a monarch but now more often a president) or of the state itself. The English name for this crime is a borrowing from medieval Anglo-Norman French, where lese majesté, leze majesté or lese magestate (among other variants) meant 'an offence against the person or dignity of the Crown', which traces back to Classical Latin laesa māiestās ('hurt or violated majesty'), which was a form of treason against the emperor under the law of maiestas in Ancient Rome. The modern spellings are due to the later influence of modern French (in the case of lèse-majesté), and the gradual transformation of Anglo-Norman into a highly-Anglicised form known as Law French (in the case of lese-majesty), with the latter also being the origin of the heavily-Anglicised pronunciation. The concept of lèse-majesté expressed the idea of a criminal...
Read on Wikipedia · Image Richard Newton (1777-1798), Public domain
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