Dorian

[dawr-ee-uh n, dohr-]

adjective

of or relating to the ancient Greek region of Doris or to the Dorians.

noun

a member of a people who entered Greece about the 12th century b.c., conquered the Peloponnesus, and destroyed the Mycenaean culture: one of the four main divisions of the prehistoric Greeks.Compare Achaean(def 5), Aeolian(def 2), Ionian(def 3).

Origin of Dorian

1595–1605; < Latin Dōri(us) (< Greek Dṓrios Dorian) + -an

Dorian

[dawr-ee-uh n, dohr-]

noun

a male or female given name.

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Examples from the Web for dorian

Contemporary Examples of dorian

Brown and his friend Dorian Johnson were going down the middle of the block for everyone to see.
Ferguson Police Protect and Serve Themselves With Michael Brown Smear
Michael Daly
August 16, 2014
Just so with Dorian Satoshi Nakamoto, whose identity seems increasingly lost in a cyber thicket that no one can penetrate.
Mysteries Continue to Swirl Around the Identity of Bitcoin’s Creator
Jake Adelstein
March 11, 2014
White is “150 pages into” a novel about “a Dorian Grey-ish figure, a male model in Paris in about 1980.”
Edmund White: Sex, Success, and Survival
Tim Teeman
February 11, 2014
Once Kennex and Dorian are paired, the pilot spends the rest of the time trying to sell us this odd couple as a duo.
‘Almost Human’ Review: A Dystopian Future That We’ve Seen Before
Chancellor Agard
November 17, 2013
The show also provides several moments for Dorian to prove his usefulness to Kennex.
‘Almost Human’ Review: A Dystopian Future That We’ve Seen Before
Chancellor Agard
November 17, 2013

Historical Examples of dorian

And these, he replied, are the Dorian and Phrygian harmonies of which I was just now speaking.
The Republic
Plato
Quite the reverse, he replied; and if so the Dorian and the Phrygian are the only ones which you have left.
The Republic
Plato
Greek architecture for the purpose of this study is Dorian architecture, and its elements are simple.
The Legacy of Greece
Various
These he explains will be only the Dorian and the Phrygian harmonies.
A Popular History of the Art of Music
W. S. B. Mathews
Dorian rose up from the piano, and passed his hand through his hair.
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Oscar Wilde

British Dictionary definitions for dorian

Dorian

noun

a member of a Hellenic people who invaded Greece around 1100 bc, overthrew the Mycenaean civilization, and settled chiefly in the Peloponnese

adjective

of or relating to this people or their dialect of Ancient Greek; Doric

music of or relating to a mode represented by the ascending natural diatonic scale from D to DSee also Hypo-

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Word Origin and History for dorian

Dorian

adj.

c.1600, in reference to the mode of ancient Greek music, literally "of Doris," from Greek Doris, district in central Greece, traditionally named for Doros, legendary ancestor of the Dorians, whose name is probably related to doron "gift" (see date (n.1)).