ethnarch
Syllables: eth·narch/ˈɛθˌnɑːɹk/
ethnarch noun: the governor of a Jewish province under the Roman Empire.
Noun
ethnarch (plural ethnarchs)
- The governor of a Jewish province under the Roman Empire.
- In the course of the struggle with the unfortunate ethnarch, the nobles had found it expedient to attach themselves to Rome.1880, Lew Wallace, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ
- A leader of an ethnic community, especially a Jewish or (in the Ottoman Empire) Eastern Orthodox leader having political as well as spiritual authority.
- In fact, from a worldly perspective, sages were petty clerks, employees of the ethnarch of their ethnic group. The ethnarch may have treated sages with […]1984, Jacob Neusner, Our Sages, God, and Israel: An Anthology of The Talmud of the Land of Israel, SP Books, →ISBN, page 120
- The Archbishop became the ethnarch, the leader of the ethnic group. It was his responsibility to administer the territories where his people lived, to collect taxes and to regulate matters relating to marriage, divorce, dowry and inheritance.2001, Anna Jarstad, Changing the Game: Consociational Theory and Ethnic Quotas in Cyprus and New Zealand, Uppsala Universitet
Examples of ethnarch in a sentence
- By the seventeenth century the archbishop became recognized as the ethnarch (ethnic political leader) of the Greek Cypriot community.2013, John Coakley, Pathways from Ethnic Conflict: Institutional Redesign in Divided Societies, Routledge, →ISBN, page 135:
- But the Ethnarch, by tradition and long-established practice that had begun under the Ottomans, was more than a spiritual leader.2019, Roderick Beaton, Greece: Biography of a Modern Country, Penguin, published 2020, page 310:
Forms of ethnarch
| plural | ethnarchs |
|---|
Origin of ethnarch
From Middle French ethnarque, and its sources, New Latin ethnarcha, Koine Greek ἐθνάρχης (ethnárkhēs, “ruler of a tribe or nation, title of a Jewish official”), from Ancient Greek ἔθνος (éthnos, “nation”).
Questions about ethnarch
- What does ethnarch mean?
- Ethnarch means the governor of a Jewish province under the Roman Empire.
- How do you use ethnarch in a sentence?
- By the seventeenth century the archbishop became recognized as the ethnarch (ethnic political leader) of the Greek Cypriot community.
- What part of speech is ethnarch?
- Ethnarch is a noun.
- How do you pronounce ethnarch?
- Ethnarch is pronounced /ˈɛθˌnɑːɹk/.
- What is the plural of ethnarch?
- The plural of ethnarch is ethnarchs.
Words near ethnarch in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: ethnarch (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.
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Cite this entry: “ethnarch.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/ethnarch. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.