Also 9 -eus; 7 Anglicized as coryphe. [L.; a. Gr. κορυφαῖος chief, head man, leader, in the Attic Drama ‘leader of the chorus’; f. κορυφή head, top.]
1. The leader of a chorus.
1678. Cudworth, Intell. Syst., 396. All those other Gods … are to that First … God, but as the Dancers to the Coryphæus or Choragus.
1732. Lediard, Sethos, II. X. 419. The people sung … and the coryphæus answer’d.
a. 1834. Coleridge, Shaks. Notes, 13. The leader of the chorus, the foreman, or coryphæus.
1870. M. MacColl, Ammergau Passion Play, 53. The coryphæus … sang or recited in monotone a short explanation of the type and ensuing act.
b. The title of a functionary in the University of Oxford, appointed (in 1856) to assist the CHORAGUS.
[1856. Statuta Univ. Oxon. (1890), 77. Præcentor, sive coryphæus, una cum chorago bipartita opera constantem musicæ practicæ exercitationem habendam curet.]
1863. Oxf. Ten Year Bk., 54. It was enacted that there shall be a Præcentor or Coryphæus … who is to assist the Choragus.
1892. Oxf. Univ. Calendar, 26. Music (Coryphæus or Precentor). John Henry Mee.
2. fig. The chief or leader of a party, sect, school, etc.
1633. T. Adams, Exp. 2 Peter iii. 2. They call him [Peter] the coryphe of the apostles.
1655. Moufet & Bennet, Health’s Improv., 141. As amongst Poets there is some called the Coryphæus, or Captain-poet, so fareth it likewise amongst Meats.
1809. Edin. Rev., April, 226. A coryphæus of the popular party.
1871. Farrar, Witn. Hist., ii. 50. Strauss, the coryphæus of modern scepticism.
