ENGLISH DICTIONARY

Doyen

Definition, Meaning & Examples

Pronunciation /ˈdɔɪ.ən/ · Part of speech noun

Quick meaning: Doyen is a noun meaning The senior, or eldest male member of a group.

Meaning

The senior, or eldest male member of a group.

More Meanings

  1. (colloquial) A leading light, or exemplar of a particular practice or movement.
  2. (obsolete) A commander in charge of ten men.

Example Sentences

Every prison has its doyen, and for us politicals it was Denis Goldberg.
Unlike the latter, however, Shifu's seriousness allowed no compromise; his criticism of Zhang ji even brought him into conflict with Wu Zhihui, one of the doyens of anarchism in China.
2008 July 3, Amanda Schaffer, “The Sex Difference Evangelists”, part 3: “Mars, Venus, Babies, and Hormones”, in Slate, In an interview, even Simon Baron-Cohen, another doyen of sex-difference claims, offered up some caution.
For these doyens of the field, the Burmese conceptual landscape was a sophisticated and complex array of beliefs, exhibiting the ability of communities to adapt, appropriate, and reshape external influences throughout history.

Word Forms

Synonyms for doyen

Depending on context, synonyms include dean.

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include dean, decener, commander, vicenary, old man, decurion.

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Sources & Attribution

FreeDictionaryAPI.com / Wiktionary · Original source · CC BY-SA 4.0

Dictionary data is provided by FreeDictionaryAPI.com and sourced from Wiktionary under its stated license.