Noun
The conductor or leader of the dramatic chorus in Ancient Greece.
Usage- Historical
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In this work Homer and Virgil already appear beside Cicero and Plato as doctrinal authorities. The four corypheuses are infallible; any contradiction between them is wholly out of the question.
The chief or leader of a party or interest.
Usage- broadly
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That noted corypheus of the Independent faction.
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Let us blithely hail, throughout the whole universe, these disciples of Christ, these two Coryphei, Peter and Paul : O Peter, the Foundation-stone and Rock ; and thou also, O Paul, Vessel of Election.
Then Corypheus Marat, author of the Friend of the People, constantly denounced him as the traitor Lafayette.
More examples (2)
Chauncey Wright, something of a philosophical celebrity in those days, was never absent from our meetings. I was about to call him our corypheus; but he will better be described as our boxing-master whom we—I particularly—used to face to be severely pummelled.
The Gnostic depreciation of the cosmos and its creator aroused the ire of the founder and corypheus of the Neoplatonic School, Plotinus (205-70), who presided over an academia in Rome and possibly had a private mystical practice.