[f. ARCH- 1, after med.L. archipoēta.] a. Chief or first poet. b. A poet-laureate (obs.)
1610. Holland, Camden’s Brit., I. 186. Henrie of Aurenches, Archpoet to King Henrie the Third.
1648. Herrick, Hesper. (1844), II. 150. After the rare arch-poet died, The sock grew loathsome.
1714. Ironside, Orig. Canto of Spencer (ed. 2), Pref. 5. England’s Arch-Poet Spencer.
a. 1744. Pope, Poet Laureat (T.). The title of ‘archipoeta,’ or arch-poet, in the style of those days: in ours, poet laureat.
a. 1754. Fielding, Pleas. Town, Wks. I. 208. The election of an arch-poet, or, as others call him, a poet-laureate to the goddess of Nonsense.
