First recorded in 1920–25
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
There he met Peter Thiel, the self-styled philosopher king of the right-wing tech community.
From Barron's ● Dec. 24, 2025
Later he emerged as a kind of philosopher king of the postwar nuclear era, publicly opposing the development of the hydrogen bomb and becoming a symbol both of America’s technological genius and of its conscience.
From New York Times ● Jul. 10, 2023
He’s a gentle philosopher king and a spiritual seeker who wants to leave a “service legacy on the Earth,” he said.
From Washington Post ● Sep. 27, 2021
Influenced by libertarian Ayn Rand and Tolkien's fantasy trilogy, Thiel, then in his early 30s, carried himself like a contrarian philosopher king.
From Salon ● Jun. 25, 2021
The true statesman, the philosopher king, in Plato's phrase, sees and serves the public good.
From The Five Great Philosophies of Life by Hyde, William De Witt
During the late 1960s, Smithson anointed himself the fledgling land art movement’s philosopher-king, promoting Heizer, who first took him out West.
From Seattle Times ● Aug. 21, 2022
As one philosopher-king noted on Cracker Barrel’s post:
From Washington Post ● Aug. 3, 2022
An affectionate portrait of his friend John Gaspar Gevartius juxtaposes a bust of Marcus Aurelius, the ancient Stoic philosopher-king, with the humanist literary scholar, pen poised over a thick sheaf of paper.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 6, 2021
The person with the greatest insight and intellect from the ruling class would be chosen philosopher-king.
From Textbooks ● Jan. 1, 2012
Jefferson was perfectly capable of remaining on script and in role as philosopher-king to the end.
From "Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation" by Joseph J. Ellis
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
