Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun The leader of a Greek chorus.
- noun A leader or spokesperson.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun drama, historical The
conductor orleader of thedramatic chorus inAncient Greece . - noun by extension The
chief or leader of aparty orinterest .
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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The morrice dancers accordingly set out upon their further progress, dancing and carolling as they went along to the sound of four musicians, who led the joyous band, while Simon Glover drew their coryphaeus into his house, and placed him in a chair by his parlour fire.
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Hey, Rob, I love your far-out "what if -?" scenarios, Naturally, I'd enjoy the tiger getting his tail really twisted, but don't you feel Nancy would make a fine female first fiddle, a commendable, callipygian coryphaeus?
Will Republicans Find the Courage to Tell Bush and Cheney It Is Time To Go? 2006
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It will be remembered that he was the martial coryphaeus who led my little army to war against Mirambo, chanting the battle-song of the
How I Found Livingstone Henry Morton 2004
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Bad flute-players twist and twirl, if they have to represent ‘the quoit-throw,’ or hustle the coryphaeus when they perform the
Poetics 2002
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Bad flute-players twist and twirl, if they have to represent ‘the quoit-throw,’ or hustle the coryphaeus when they perform the
Poetics 2002
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Walter Roman was not only "a member of the International Brigade in Spain" but also a prominent coryphaeus of the Communist Party and of the Comintern, who became also, after the communist take-over of Romania, the political leader of the Romanian army.
Survival in Romania Ross, George 1992
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The Soviet Union was ferociously reviled by the reaction and its coryphaeus at the service of the exploiters.
MASS RALLY 1974
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The chief circumstance to which he owed this sudden wave of popularity was the adroitness with which he succeeded in putting himself at the head of the particular movement of which Daniel the Stylite was both the coryphaeus and the true inspirer.
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 1: Aachen-Assize 1840-1916 1913
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The great coryphaeus of the South-Galatian theory is Prof. Sire W.M. Ramsay.
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 6: Fathers of the Church-Gregory XI 1840-1916 1913
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A singer could never tolerate a lyre that did not match his voice, nor a coryphaeus a chorus that did not chant in tune.
yarb commented on the word coryphaeus
Heaven knows what sort of performers we must have been, when they took me for the Coryphaeus of the opera, though I never had but two or three lessons from a petty dancing-master, who taught the pages on the establishment of the Marchioness de Chaves.
- Lesage, The Adventures of Gil Blas of Santillane, tr. Smollett, bk 9 ch. 3
October 7, 2008