archon
/ˈɑː(ɹ)kən/
archon noun: a chief magistrate of ancient Athens.
Noun
archon (plural archontes or archons)
- A chief magistrate of ancient Athens.
- Hated by the archons of Athens for his fearless condemnation of municipal graft, he was hypocritically arraigned on a charge of corrupting Athenian youth.1980, Burgess, Earthly Powers
- A person who claims the right to rule, or to exercise power or sovereign authority over other human beings.
- A ruler, head of state or other leader.
- But neither the midwife’s lore nor the caudlectures saved him from the archons of Sinn Fein and their noggin of hemlock.1922, James Joyce, Ulysses
- A supernatural ruler of the cosmos.
- Their claim to totality is like the cry of the archon Ialdabaoth that he was the Lord of the Universe and that there was nothing beyond him.1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 83
archon meaning in Arabic and Persian
archon in Arabic
- chief magistrate
- أَرْخُن ʔarḵon
archon in Persian
- chief magistrate
- ارخون arxon, ارکنت arkont
Examples of archon in a sentence
- But an Alcmaeonid archon had some of the Cylonians summarily executed.
- Common to all authentic Gnostic schools are teachings on the demiurgos and archons.
- As he was especially the priest of the prytaneum, the Greeks preferred to call him the prytane; sometimes they also called him the archon.
Forms of archon
| plural | archontes |
|---|---|
| plural | archons |
| alternative form | arkhon |
Origin of archon
From Ancient Greek ἄρχων (árkhōn), a noun use of the present participle of ἄρχω (árkhō, “to rule”).
Words formed from archon
Questions about archon
- What does archon mean?
- Archon means a chief magistrate of ancient Athens.
- What is archon in Arabic?
- Archon in Arabic is أَرْخُن (ʔarḵon). See Archon meaning in Arabic.
- What part of speech is archon?
- Archon is a noun.
- How do you pronounce archon?
- Archon is pronounced /ˈɑː(ɹ)kən/.
- What is the plural of archon?
- The plural of archon is archontes.
Words near archon in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: archon (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-archon.ogg.
Cite this entry: “archon.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/archon. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.