coryphei

The savages, after this triumph of diplomacy, suddenly turned, and, thrusting their fingers in their mouths, emitted a shrill note, which had the effect of enchanting the forest of rushes across the river, and causing it to give birth to a whole ballet of naked coryphei.

Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 11, No. 23, February, 1873 Various

In this fidelity he was earnestly resolute, even in the face of the coryphei of theological and philosophical speculation, in rejecting all views and thought-constructions which seemed to him foreign to the spirit of the Holy Scriptures, however much they might seem to he characterized by profundity or by loftiness of thought, and however much they might bedazzle by brilliant ingenuity and by their artful application to Biblical ideas.

Christian Ethics. Volume I.���History of Ethics. 1819-1870 1873