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
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
When he waxed eloquent this week about justice and the role of federal courts, Chief Justice John Roberts sounded like a philosopher king.
From Salon ● Jan. 3, 2020
I couldn’t agree with Lear, and it wasn’t because I doubted his ET philosopher king cosmology.
From Slate ● Jul. 17, 2019
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
But one senses his eagerness to resolve all questions in Marcus’ favor and preserve the luster of the philosopher-king.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 11, 2026
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
What better fate for Julian than someday being the power behind the Suaori throne, than transforming his pupil into a philosopher-king?
From "The Secret History" by Donna Tartt
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.
